New jail won't relieve mass crowding

Lack of workers. Incompetence in an ancient jail system. The uncertainty of funds.

These are only a scant number of reasons why another jail should not be opened in California.

The Los Angeles Sheriff's Department reported that a new jail will be opened next year in downtown Los Angeles.

The new Twin Towers jail will be funded from money raised by leasing other county jail beds to state and federal agencies, Sheriff Sherman Block told The Associated Press.

The sheriff's chief budget officer, Fred M. Ramirez, told reporters that commitments from various state and federal agencies are needed to make the plan work.

This is where part of the problem lies.

What happens if these various agencies do not agree to this plan? Where, then, will the money come from?

Will it come by raising taxes?

Or will it come from money that is supposed to go to our colleges and universities?

Likewise, Block has said that he does not know where the money will come from to operate the jail after June 1998.

What California needs to do is spend its money on more classes and lower tuition fees for students than erect a new jail.

Creating more extracurricular activites to help kids stay off the streets is another matter that this state should spend its time worrying about.

Block concurred in a report that the opening of Twin Towers will not ease overcrowding in the jails. Due to overcrowding, many inmates are released early in order to make room for more violent criminals.

What, then, is the purpose of Twin Towers? One would think that a new jail would serve the purpose of reducing the numbers of inmates in other jails. But this would not the case.

It is baffling to think about something being built with no concrete purpose but to take up space, time and money.

It seems as if the Sheriff's Department is not sure themselves why another jail is being opened. This is clear in an Associated Press report that says Block disclosed his plan after almost a year of saying that there was not enough money to open the 4,100-bed Twin Towers.

With the opening of a new prison, the Sheriff's Department will have to hire more jail clerks to handle the inmate processing system.

There already is not enough jail clerks to handle the paperwork from two dozen or so courts every day. In addition, the processing system is outdated. It was implemented in the 1970s.

With all of the problems mentioned above, there is no need for another penitentiary. California needs to spend money on problems such as providing better school programs, controlling drugs and preventing violence.

Tino Poti is a reporter for the Daily Forty-Niner.