Neighborhood Groups Oppose Jail Expansion

A proposal to add 2,400 beds to the Men’s Central Jail in downtown Los Angeles, the cornerstone of efforts to alleviate severe overcrowding, is meeting with neighborhood opposition in Chinatown and East Los Angeles.

The project is one of the final steps in a planned expansion of the Los Angeles County jail system. But as a decision nears on how to finance the project, nearby residents and businessmen are joining forces to fight it, saying their communities are already overloaded with existing or proposed jail facilities.

The Board of Supervisors, with one member missing, on Tuesday delayed a scheduled vote on a $197.5-million bond issue proposal that would help pay for 5,104 new jail beds, including those slated for the Central Jail on Bauchet Street.

The board, which will decide next week whether to place the bond issue on the November ballot, seemed prepared to consider it only a routine item.

100 at Hearing

But more than 100 residents from Chinatown, East Los Angeles, Lincoln Heights and the William Meade housing project directly behind the jail arrived at board chambers Tuesday to protest the plan.

“It’s all been very hush-hush,” Chinatown attorney Sharon Lowe said, contending that no one in the community knew of the long-planned expansion until three months ago and only a few days ago learned of the supervisors’ scheduled vote.

The bond issue would help finance new beds that would increase the inmate capacity at Central Jail to nearly 9,000.

Saykin Foo of the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Assn., a civic group of 28 Chinese family associations, said people there are appalled at the prospect of a neighboring jail population almost as large as Chinatown’s 10,000-member community.

“Can you imagine the traffic coming in and out of there?” he asked. Chinatown is also strapped for housing, he said, adding, “Here we need housing space and we can’t find it, and they want to expand the jail for prisoner housing.”

County officials deny there was anything secretive about their efforts to expand the 10-jail system, which was built for 13,464 inmates but, as of early Tuesday, held 21,331.

With pressure from the federal courts to ease overcrowding, thousands of inmates have been given emergency releases, authorities said, noting that without expanding jail capacity--especially at Central Jail, the largest facility--the problem will worsen.

“Without it, we’re going to have to let (inmates) go, it’s just that simple. There’s no room at the inn,” said Cmdr. William Waller, acting chief of the sheriff’s custody division. “If we don’t have expansion, we will be in dire straits.”

The county’s jail expansion program has been in the works since 1983, when the Sheriff’s Department submitted a plan to the supervisors. The board agreed to a general expansion plan and then implemented it facility by facility.

But the supervisors decided only last year to expand Central Jail.

Under the proposal, two new towers--seven and nine stories tall--would be built at Central Jail on what is now a parking lot. An inmate processing center and 200-bed medical wing would also be constructed. In all, 2,408 beds would be added to help a jail population that numbered 6,591 on Tuesday.

Waller said that the site was chosen because the county already owned the land and that it would be “a nightmare” to build another facility and transport prisoners from the downtown area.

“I don’t think there was any intention to hide anything,” said Waller, who added that he is surprised at the opposition now surfacing.

Among the opponents is Aurora Castillo of Mothers of East Los Angeles, which spearheaded the ongoing fight against locating a proposed 1,700-inmate state prison in the Eastside area near Boyle Heights.

“Here we are again. It seems like they’re making our area into a penal colony,” she said.

The county, which also will rely on state bond financing, has plans to add 1,200 jail beds for juveniles and 256 beds for women prisoners, under its expansion plan.