Can Tent Jails Be Utilized In San Diego County?

The next Sheriff of San Diego County has an obligation and duty to the citizens to review the annual costs and expenses experienced by the Sheriff’s Department.  Regardless of where you live in the County of San Diego, whether in an incorporated city or in a rural or unincorporated area of the county you pay taxes to support the Sheriff’s Department.  You also have the right to vote for the next Sheriff.

 At this moment in time there are thousands of un-served warrants of arrest for people who are either suspected of committing a crime, failed to post bail, failed to appear in court on their scheduled date or any number of other reasons.  These people have little fear of being arrested because of overcrowding in our local county jails.  It has been estimated that in today’s dollars the most recently constructed county jail would cost approximately $80+ million.  The taxpayers of this county cannot afford to construct another such jail.  However the citizens of San Diego County cannot afford to allow persons who have outstanding warrants issued against them to roam our communities without having to answer for their suspected or actual illegal actions

Serving large quantities of outstanding warrants has the potential of returning sizeable sums of money to the County of San Diego.  Perhaps the money gained could be utilized for firefighting efforts.

California’s prison system has been grossly overcrowded for many years.  As a result of the overcrowding felons have been systematically released back in to our communities.  In many areas our crime rates have increased.  We must make room in our jails to place these criminals when many of them offend again.  The taxpayers simply cannot invest huge sums of tax dollars building new multi-million dollar jails.  Yet politicians in Sacramento continuously talk of the early release of felons as the answer to prison over crowding.

In Phoenix, Arizona, Sheriff Joe Arpiao constructed a tent jail in the early 1990’s which first housed 500 inmates.  The cost of that jail was approximately $100 thousand.  We in San Diego can and must construct such a jail if we are to keep our citizens safe and cut the cost of law enforcement to the taxpayer.  Inmates serving time in the Arizona tent jails also provide services to their community.  Those serving time in the tent jails have already had their day in court and have been found guilty of the crime they were accused and sentenced to serve a given amount of time by an Arizona court.  Some will try to convince the public that tent jails are not legal.  This is simply not true.  Tent jails are legal and are needed.

Persons who have convicted of committing a crime against society’s law owe a debt to that society.  Such debt should include providing a service back to their community, whether it is cutting fire breaks in our back country or any other task they can legally be held to complete.

Our jails currently have areas for inmates to exercise. Many of these exercise area contain large numbers of “free weights” and/or other exercise apparatuses for working out and keeping themselves in good physical shape. This is ridiculous!  If you or I wanted to have access to such body building equipment we would either have to purchase it or join a gym with an iniation fee and monthly dues.  The citizens should not pay for such elaborate equipment!  Inmates should be afforded the opportunity to enjoy physical exercise, it is the law.  But, such exercise equipment should not be the cause for the taxpayer to shoulder another tax burden.  Inmates should have a minimum of physical exercise equipment allowing them to gain exercise via push ups, sit ups and pull ups.  Exercise equipment should be the minimum required by law.

Inmates currently enjoy the opportunity to watch television on expensive television sets.  They can watch almost any program they desire.  This also must be curtailed.  Programs or movies that reflect violence, law enforcement in a negative light, sexually explicit or implied scenes or messages must be stopped. Inmates must realize that they are in custody and cannot enjoy what they once may have enjoyed.  They should be allowed to watch only selected programs.  For example they may be allowed to watch the news, the weather channel, the discovery channel and perhaps the Disney channel.  If they are permitted to watch only a few selected channels they will still be able to enjoy entertainment but not potentially harmful entertainment.

San Diego County must remember that those who have been convicted of a crime must serve their time in custody, not at home with electronic monitoring or simply put back into society on probation to commit another crime.  Tent jails will help solve these problems.