Rio Cosumnes Jail Struggles to Accomodate New Inmates

Two weeks into the state’s prison realignment campaign and warning bells are already being sounded at a local custody facility just outside of Elk Grove.

on Bruceville Road serves as the area’s primary custody facility for inmates sentenced to county jail in Sacramento Superior Court, as well as a way station for inmates en route to other jurisdictions.

It’s already seeing the arrival of more longer-term inmates since California’s plan to transfer more responsibility for prisoners to local areas went into effect Oct. 1. And jail officials worry there’s not enough staff at the facility to handle the influx that may be coming.

“The Sheriff, Undersheriff and Chief have the additional burden of worrying about the safety of their employees in what inarguably is becoming an increasingly hazardous environment,” Sacramento County Sheriff’s Department Lt. Mike Butler said in an email.

When the U.S. Supreme Court ordered California’s overcrowded prison system to release tens of thousands of inmates, the May ruling set off a frenzied race to find alternate homes for the offenders.

“The stimulus, the force we can’t avoid is the order of the United States Supreme Court,” Gov. Jerry Brown told a statewide conference on public safety realignment last month regarding the court’s decree to release 30,000 state prison inmates.

Tapping into billions in sales tax revenues and vehicle license fees wielded by Assembly Bill 109, the state hurried to prepare county facilities for a massive inmate dump by the Oct. 1 deadline.

“We ‘rocketed’ toward that date without local agencies having sufficient time to plan, and there are so many unanswered questions about the realignment process and some of the impacts that it will have,” said sheriff’s department spokesperson Deputy Jason Ramos. “That’s why there is so much heated dialogue about the issue.”

On Thursday, a county committee tasked with deciding how to allocate $6 million in realignment money narrowly voted to recommend using the funds to staff a 258-bed wing at RCCC, according to The Sacramento Bee. The recommendation to reopen the jail’s Roger Bauman Facility will go before the Board of Supervisors Nov. 1.

But even with the additional funding, RCCC officials say there still won’t be enough correctional bodies to manage a spike in inmate population at a facility that’s currently 200 inmates above its recommended cap of 1,625.

RCCC currently employs one captain, five lieutenants, 17 sergeants and 151 deputies, according to internal figures.

Despite the state’s promise that only non-violent, non-sex offenders are being sent to county facilities rather than state prisons, local corrections officials also fret about the effect more hardened inmates will have on the existing population.

“With more and more state inmates bringing the ‘prison gang’ mentality, there is bound to be an impact on the extent to which some of these guys try to influence other inmates and organize their criminal enterprises while in custody,” Ramos said.

Brown struck a more hopeful tone during his September conference speech.

“The goal is public safety, living within our scarce means and recognizing that people who are closest to the problem, most affected by it, can provide the most flexible, the most sensitive and the most common sense response,” he said. “When you put all the diversity of California under the state dome, it becomes dysfunctional. What you can do in Modoc as a Modockian is very different that what you can do in San Francisco as a San Franciscan.”

Or, perhaps, what can be done as a “Rio Cosumnan.”