Sheriff Lee Baca studying possible bail reduction to deal with budget cuts

Sheriff Lee Baca is in talks with court officials to determine whether reducing bail for nonviolent offenders would cut jail overcrowding at a time when he's considering closing down the Men's Central Jail.

Sheriff's Spokesman Steve Whitmore said Baca is examining the current bail schedule for nonviolent offenders and wants to discuss with judges the prospects for reducing some of types of bail. Baca does not have the power to change the bail schedule, which would require the support of judges as well as prosecutors and public defenders.

Whitmore said that if more offenders could afford bail, fewer of them would be incarcerated at the jails, allowing the sheriff to house violent offenders longer.

Baca said Monday that he is considering closing one or perhaps two jails to cope with expected budget cuts. Such closures would reduce the overall jail capacity, resulting in more early releases of offenders, Baca said.

Baca said closing the downtown Los Angeles jail, which would greatly reduce the capacity of the county jail system and lead to more early releases of inmates, might be necessary to bridge what he estimates will be a $72-million gap in his budget.

But he was criticized today by some county officials.

County officials said they have requested that he draft preliminary plans to reduce his $2.5 billion budget by $62 million, and they appeared caught off guard by Baca's proposal to release inmates and could not immediately offer alternative plans to find the needed savings.

Some supervisors suggested areas ripe for trimming. "If the sheriff can't find the savings, we're willing to help him," said Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, noting that the department's administration budget has increased by 151% over the last 10 years and the patrol budget has increased by 115% over the same period.

"The amount of overtime the sheriff spends is a scandal," Yaroslavsky added. "We'll be releasing numbers on that in the coming days." 

Even the sheriff's staunchest political allies on the board said he did not have to close Men's Central Jail.

"Supervisor [Michael] Antonovich believes the savings can be achieved through administrative cuts," spokesman Tony Bell said.

-- Richard Winton and Garrett Therolf

Photo: Los Angeles Times

Comments

[Les]

The County of Los Angeles should look into cutting all other Departments before cutting the Sheriff's Department. Letting criminals out of jail during a poor economic time is very dangerous. Afterall, what are the criminals going to do when they get out of jail? Get a job!

[suspicious]

This is just part of Sheriff Baca's game plan to try to scare the public into pressuring the Supervisors to authorize money for a new jail, but it sounds like there's no support for that, so this sort of behavior intended to embarass them may well backfire on him.

The Supervisors have said they haven't even discussed this with him, and that he never presented his own plans on how he might cut money. The other depts. are being asked to cut 5%, and while sheriffs on the street are very important, like Zev Y says, a huge part of their cost is administrative/ desk job INCREASES, and also a very powerful prison guard union. Remember how they threatened to mount a recall against the Governor for wanting to reign in their pensions/ expenses. So Baca isn't going to try to challenge them -- he went straight to embarassing the Supervisors by scaring voters.

Having said this, I think reducing bail for nonviolent offenders and putting more of them on home detention with electronic monitors is a good way to go. Too bad there was a backlash against that for Paris Hilton -- there are lots of people like her who would be punished enough by just being forced to stay at home, out of the PR spotlight, away from work, etc. Yet that wouldn't cost the taxpayers much and allow us to keep the worst in prison.

Also separate those in jail for mental illness and substance abuse, who are otherwise nonviolent -- putting them in jail with violent offenders and Hispanic gangbangers puts them at unnecessary risk for injury and mental abuse from those hardened criminals, many of whom align by racial lines.

Is there a huge lack of communication between Supervisors and the Sheriff that's both their faults, or is he a loose canon?