Women's jail suffers with outdated conditions

Down the hall, women with mental illness — which make up 18 percent of the approximately 150-person population — are held in six cramped holding rooms. And just beyond the front doors, the bond between mother and child is forced to exist in a room no larger than a phone booth with a plate glass window preventing any human contact.

With facilities like this, Facility Cmdr. Ray Lunny wonders how inmates stand a chance of getting the help they need to improve their lives.

"Ask yourself, is this where you’d want to be? Is this where you’d want your wives or sisters? I ask myself that all the time,” Lunny said during a tour of the facility yesterday afternoon.

The women’s jail, at 1590 Maple St. in Redwood City, was constructed in 1980 and was soon considered outdated and overcrowded. It consistently holds between 140 and 170 inmates while the State Board of Corrections rates it for 84. On Tuesday, the facility was holding 154 inmates with an additional 26 held at the men’s Maguire Facility in Redwood City. The total number of women is 183 percent of capacity.

The seriousness of the facility’s overcrowding has officials rethinking how incarceration and rehabilitation is conducted in this county. At the same time, the county is faced with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger plan to transfer state inmates to local jails in the final year of their sentence, which could bring an approximately 900 additional inmates to the county, San Mateo County Sheriff Greg Munks said this week.

Munks is looking to completely revamp the local jail system with new facilities and programs while a team of county supervisors push an effort to make sure the women’s jail is providing the unique services it requires.

Meanwhile, San Mateo County Supervisors Adrienne Tissier and Rose Jacobs Gibson are spearheading a movement to develop a set of best practices to use at the women’s jail. The two want to explore what programs could work best for lowering recidivism rates among women in the county.

Approximately 18 percent of the women require serious physiological monitoring — that is double the rate for the county’s incarcerated male population. Those requiring physiological monitoring are placed into one of six separate rooms. The rooms are usually shared, with a bunk bed, increasing the chances of a physical altercation and suicide attempts from the bed, Lunny said.

Last week, an inmate attacked a correctional guard while being moved from one these rooms, Lunny said.

The majority of female inmates have substance abuse problems yet only 26 chose to participate in the Choices program run at the facility. The program helps rehabilitate substance abusers. It treats about 190 men at the Maguire facility, but women aren’t as quick to sign up for the program, said Capt. Greg Trindle of the San Mateo County Sheriff’s Office.

On Feb. 22, the supervisors are hosting the Women’s Criminal Justice Summit to gather key county personnel with community members to brainstorm ideas in treating female offenders. In addition to the high rate of substance abuse, approximately 60 percent of the county’s incarcerated women were unemployed when they committed crimes. Many are mothers who lack adequate parenting skills and their incarceration creates emotional trauma for their young children.

Studies show that children under 5 with mothers in jail are five times more likely to eventually commit crimes. At the current facility, women and children must visit through thick glass in a room the size of a phone booth. An ideal situation would provide room for personal contact between mom and child, Tissier said.

The Women’s Criminal Justice Summit will be held 7:30 a.m., Thursday, Feb. 22 at the Oracle Corporate Conference Center.

Dana Yates can be reached by e-mail: dana@smdailyjournal.com or by phone: (650) 344-5200 ext. 106. What do you think of this story? Send a letter to the editor: letters@smdailyjournal.com.

San Mateo County Women’s Correctional Facility

Constructed: 1980

Cost: $3 million to $4 million

Average cell size: 7 feet by 10 feet

Rated capacity: 84

Max capacity: 153

Average capacity, 2006: 139

Average length of stay, 2006: 15.9 days

Most frequent charges: DUI, Possession of controlled substance, drunk in public, driving with suspended license.

Assaultive: 12 percent

Suicidal: 19 percent

Mental illness: 18 percent

Daily cost of housing each inmate: $145.96

Source: San Mateo County Sheriff’s Office.