PITCHESS LAND KEY TO EXPANSION BACA, JANSSEN WANT MORE JAILS BUILT THERE.

Byline: SUE DOYLE Staff writer

LOS ANGELES -- Expanding the Pitchess Detention Center in Castaic remained the primary probability Tuesday as the county Board of Supervisors looked at ways to relieve overcrowding in the jail system.

The Sheriff's Department presented six expansion proposals, some costing more than $1 billion. The supervisors in February had requested a review of jail needs after a spate of inmate riots.

For years, inmates have been released early because there aren't enough beds. This year, $200 million is earmarked to increase capacity.

County supervisors plan a further review Aug. 1 of two options presented Tuesday in which the Pitchess complex would be expanded to accommodate as many as 2,400 more inmates. The four jails at Pitchess now house about 9,000 of the 19,000 inmates in the jail system countywide.

The sprawling grounds of Pitchess, just off Interstate 5 at Hasley Canyon Road, appear the most attractive place so far to county officials looking to construct more jails.

``It's likely going to be at Pitchess because we don't have other land,'' said David Janssen, the county's chief administrative officer.

Janssen and Sheriff Lee Baca presented the options.

Baca favors a proposal that includes building a high-security wing to hold 400 more inmates at the North County Correctional Facility at Pitchess and a new medium-security jail for 1,000 men. In addition, ranch-type facilities would be constructed for about 1,000 low-risk women inmates.

One inmate died in February at the North Facility at Pitchess after race riots that rocked the jail for days and spread through the county system.

A second inmate later died after a fight in his cell at the Men's Central Jail downtown.

After the deadly fighting, high-risk inmates were moved from Pitchess to Twin Towers, a maximum-security jail downtown. Women who had been housed at Twin Towers were transferred to Lynwood's Century Regional Detention Center, a medium-security jail that had been closed.

Now the sheriff wants to move the women to make room for about 1,800 male high-security inmates at Century, a plan Janssen said is at the heart of all the options being reviewed.

Plans also call for reopening Sybil Brand Institute in East Los Angeles to house 1,000 women.

Supervisors heard protests, mainly from area residents, against reopening the old women's jail that closed in 1998.

Assistant Sheriff Paul Tanaka said in an interview earlier this week that the space crunch has been making it difficult to separate violent inmates and members of rival gangs.

But before any construction starts, Supervisor Yvonne Brathwaite Burke said she wants proof the Sheriff's Department will have enough deputies to staff the facilities. Burke noted that Twin Towers was built during the mid-1990s but unused for years because sheriff's officials said they could not afford to staff it in a county budget crisis.

``There's nothing more embarrassing than having a new jail that's not used,'' Burke said.

Baca said he is confident the department would have the necessary personnel.

Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich directed the staff to work with the Castaic Town Council to include the community in the planning before any final decision is made.

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