ALTERNATIVES SOUGHT FOR OVERCROWDED WOMEN'S JAIL

Justice Center Would Focus On Rehab

REDWOOD CITY -- A new report recommends that San Mateo County build a
minimum security center devoted to rehabilitation, job training and
parenting in order to manage a female prisoner population that shows
no signs of decreasing.

Titled the "Maple Street Correctional Facilities Needs Assessment
Report," the document suggests that the Board of Supervisors curb its
exploding inmate population at the Women's Correctional Center by
developing "a graduated continuum of supervision options, facilities
and therapeutic services" that stretch from arrest until six months
after release.

According to the report, female jail admissions have increased 3.6
percent each year between 1997 and 2006 and are expected, based on
projections by the California Department of Finance, to increase
another 9.6 percent by 2025. The county's female jail population has
operated at as high as 217 percent of capacity approved by the state
Corrections Standards Authority.

The women's jail is rated for 84 beds; Monday's population was 154,
with another 32 spilled over into a wing of the men's jail, Maguire
Correctional Facility.

Board of Supervisors Vice President Adrienne Tissier, who sits on the
county's Jail Crowding and Facilities Task Force, said the report did
not yield any big surprises.

"What it did, really, is just reinforce what we already know, which is
that the facility is inadequate," Tissier said.

The consultant-prepared reportrecommends the county create a "Women's
Justice Center" at the location of the current women's jail on Maple
Street. Half of the center's 316 beds should be dedicated to a minimum
security treatment facility.

Designed for stays of six to nine months, the facility should include
job training, mental health treatment, work and education furlough and
a mother-and-child visitation program for day and overnight visits.

Outside that, 16 beds would be used for maximum security, 72 beds for
a drug treatment unit and 70 beds for general population medium
security housing.

The center also should have an outpatient day treatment center for
women and children making the transition from custody to probation. At
sites elsewhere, the report recommends the county contract with
shelters for transitional housing for mothers and children at risk for
homelessness after release.

It remains unknown where funding for these ideas might come
from.

The report found that only 12 percent of female prisoners are held for
weapons or other violent charges; most are held for non-violent drug
and stolen property offenses. Seventy percent were unemployed at the
time they were arrested. Eighty percent of 75 confined women
interviewed for the report said they had moderate to severe substance
abuse problems, with methamphetamine by far their drug of choice.

"Very few inmates indicated that they were currently receiving
substance abuse treatment, and an average of 47 percent reported never
having received substance abuse treatment," the report said.

"We need to expand treatment programs and options," said Supervisor
Mark Church, who founded the Jail Crowding and Facilities Task Force
in 2004. "We need to help these people succeed in life."

The report attempts to explain why the female jail population grows
unabated and found that it is perhaps partly because the courts have
been allowing fewer women to be released before trial.

The number of women released on their own recognizance before trial
decreased 12.2 percent between 1998 and 2006, and supervised released
decreased 8.3 percent. In February, of the 134 presented to the court
for pre-trial release, only 17.2 percent were recommended.

"These patterns reflect a cautious philosophy regarding the use of
pretrial release and supervision and they represent missed
opportunities to free up jail beds, reduce average lengths of stay,
(and) maintain bonds between mother and child," the report said.

The report also noted that female inmates are given few opportunities
by the court for diversion programs that can keep them out of jail,
such as the county's Drug Court.

Assistant Sheriff Greg Trindle said the Sheriff's Office and the task
force plan to ask the supervisors at their April 24 meeting for
approval to conduct a similar in-depth examination of the needs in the
men's jail.

The reports' recommendations could be complicated by any changes the
Legislature makes to reform the state's overpopulated corrections
system, but Church said the county can not wait for state officials.

"We have a serious issue that needs to be addressed, regardless of
what the governor does, and we intend to address that issue," Church
said.

Though the completion of any potential new facility would be three to
five years away at least, the report also can be used for implementing
changes now.

"We need to look at this on a daily, and if not a daily, a weekly or
monthly basis," Trindle said. "We need to try and take some of this
data and look at it with some of our other county partners, if you
will, and see if there's anything we can do now."