FITTING IN FEMALE INMATES REMODELED SYBIL BRAND, PITCHESS JAILS MIGHT NOT HOLD ALL PRISONERS.

Byline: ALEX DOBUZINSKIS

Staff Writer

Los Angeles County's plan to move all its female inmates to a jail in Monterey Park and the Pitchess Detention Center in Castaic has hit a hurdle, as officials try to determine whether they will have enough space, authorities said.

The county's only jail for women is the Century Regional Detention Facility in Lynwood, which has a female population that fluctuates between 2,000 and 2,300. But county officials want to move those female inmates from the maximum-security facility and fill it with more dangerous male inmates.

By remodeling the Sybil Brand Institute in Monterey Park for 1,000 women, and by creating space for more than 1,240 women at Pitchess, the county could have enough beds by 2010 to accommodate its current population of female inmates, officials said.

But bringing the shuttered Sybil Brand Institute back to life and fitting 1,000 inmates there has proved challenging. And if the county's population of female inmates balloons to more than 2,300, authorities might have to re-examine how many women they can incarcerate, officials said.

"One of the things they are looking at is whether or not the female population, as it fluctuates ... will we be able to have adequate space for all of them?" said Anna Pembedjian, justice deputy to county Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich.

Jails are crowded and the sheriff has been forced to release inmates early to make room. Inmates who have the option of serving their sentences with electronic monitoring have been choosing jail instead, because they know early release will guarantee them a shorter sentence, Pembedjian said.

So the county has lobbied for state legislation that would make electronic monitoring mandatory in some cases. Officials hope that could reduce the number of female inmates, and the amount of jail space they would have to build for women.

The county is spending $250 million to both renovate Sybil Brand and expand Pitchess to accommodate women. Sybil Brand in Monterey Park was built in 1963, and it was closed in 1997 because it had fallen into disrepair and the county had no money to fix it. Repairing it now is no easier task, because it involves removing hazardous materials and replacing electrical, plumbing, kitchen and communication equipment.

"It's a very old facility, so that's what they're trying to work out -- ways they can get 1,000 beds out of that facility," said Magi Work, field representative for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

Adrianne Ferree, assistant director of facilities planning for the Sheriff's Department, also said getting 1,000 female inmates into Sybil Brand will be difficult. At Pitchess, the plan is to build a new facility for 1,000 inmates, and integrate four existing barracks to hold 240 to 270 more, Ferree said.

Since at least 1993, county officials have talked about housing female inmates at Pitchess, but the project has been hampered by red tape and other roadblocks.

alex.dobuzinskis(at)dailynews.com

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