Grand Jury Backs Expansion of Jail Alternatives : Crime: However, panel cautions that the solution to overcrowding is still a new jail. Doubling work-release and other programs would still force officials to release 40,000 to 45,000 inmates this year.

The Orange County Grand Jury on Monday urged county officials to expand alternatives to incarceration to relieve jail overcrowding, but warned that the solution to the county’s crisis still depends on creating more jail space.

In its year-end report on alternatives to jail, the 1990-91 grand jury recommended that criteria be changed to permit more inmates to use the “house arrest” program, and that “selected” low-risk nonviolent felons be permitted on work-furlough programs.

“Our big fear in issuing this report was that people would think we were saying that there are alternatives out there to solve our problems,” said Grant Baldwin, grand jury chairman. “But that’s not the case. The bottom line is that this county must have more jail space.”

The grand jury has been on record since last year supporting the proposed jail in Gypsum Canyon north of Anaheim. It was also supportive of the Measure J initiative defeated by voters last month, which would have imposed a special sales tax to fund construction of a new jail.

“The (alternative) programs would require expansion to eight to 10 times their present levels just to meet today’s jail overcrowding,” the grand jury report states.

The grand jury stated that doubling work releases, work furloughs and security electronic confinement (house arrests) would still leave Orange County Jail officials citing and releasing 40,000 to 45,000 inmates in 1991, according to projected figures provided by county corrections authorities.

In 1990, 450 inmates were permitted to wear electronic security bracelets that let them serve their sentences at home under house arrest. Baldwin wasn’t sure how many more could be included, but the grand jury report states that the county Probation Department considers it a highly effective alternative to jail.

Allen Lindeman, a spokesman for the Probation Department, said the Board of Supervisors would probably have to change the criteria to allow more inmates to participate in the program.

Lindeman pointed out that the county has a task force considering jail alternatives.

The grand jury noted the work of that task force, but recommended that it be expanded by creating a “coordinating council” comprising all involved departments. The grand jury states in its report that it found “extensive” misunderstanding among some county agencies on what the alternatives to jail programs were all about.

In 1990, 3,652 inmates in the county participated in weekend work-release programs, in which they lived at home and worked at regular jobs during the week. Another 2,449 were in straight work-release programs, in which they did not have to report to jail on weekends. Another 950 were in furlough programs, in which they lived in a community service facility while working at regular jobs or participating in alcohol or drug counseling.