By Shaun Bishop San Mateo County Times
Contra Costa Times
CONTRA COSTA COUNTY, Calif. — A new jail in San Mateo County will help make the entire community safer, top officials said Wednesday, though they had no answer to the most pressing question for residents where it will be built.
Sheriff Greg Munks and several other county officials made their case for a new jail to a group of residents Wednesday night at a meeting to invite public comment on the idea.
Munks said the county needs a new minimum- to medium-security jail to relieve severe overcrowding in the men’s and women’s jails in Redwood City.
Residents, though, have grown anxious about where such a facility will be built. One person who attended the meeting criticized a potential site near Coyote Point Park as too close to parks and schools.
Munks said a committee is considering more than 20 sites and plans to weigh several factors, in particular how close a site is to the Redwood City courts.
Supervisor Adrienne Tissier said naming a site now would be “premature.”
“If you’re asking my personal opinion, I’d have some difficulty locating it at (Coyote Point),” Tissier said.
But, she added, “At this point I don’t want to say we’re ruling things out.”
Officials contend the new jail will help reduce recidivism among inmates; an estimated 60 to 70 percent of prisoners go on to commit another crime once released from custody.
The facility will offer job training, substance abuse treatment and counseling services that are limited in the existing jails due to overcrowding, according to officials.
Tissier said many women are sitting in jail wasting time when they could be acquiring skills to help prevent them from committing more crimes.
“If she’s not getting any of that attention when she’s there, she will come right back into our system,” Tissier said.
San Mateo County Superior Court Judge Mark Forcum said the courts are supportive of alternatives to jailing people. “Treatment does work if it’s focused,” he said.
The men’s Maguire Correctional Facility holds about 930 prisoners now, well over its rated capacity of 688, and the women’s jail has held as many as 160, nearly double its 84-inmate capacity.
“We have squeezed the lemon as hard as we can,” Munks said.
Without a new jail, the situation could reach a crisis point if a judge orders prisoners released because of overcrowding, Munks said. The countywide effort to get gang members off the street, which has brought a reduction in violence, also could be compromised.
An early proposal calls for a 648-bed facility that would house all of the county’s female prisoners and some of the male prisoners. It would cost an estimated $140 million, though officials have yet to figure out how to pay for it.
Other residents Wednesday wanted to know why the county is not using vacant jail facilities in La Honda and South San Francisco to relieve overcrowding. Munks said their remoteness and lack of bed space makes them inadequate in the long term.
An additional meeting will take place at 7 p.m. on Oct. 23 at El Camino High School, located at 1320 Mission Road in South San Francisco.
Copyright 2008 Contra Costa Newspapers