Merced County tries again for jail renovation funding

Merced County will again try to win state money to renovate and expand the John Latorraca Correctional Facility on Sandy Mush Road to increase security and provide treatment programs to inmates.

The county has applied for similar funding twice before, under Assembly Bill 900 and Senate Bill 1022 more recently, said Merced sheriff’s Capt. Greg Sullivan, commander of jail operations. This application is under Senate Bill 863, which addresses correctional facilities’ needs for improved housing, and an emphasis on program and treatment space.

Merced County’s application is for $40 million that will be used to renovate each dormitory at the John Latorraca Correctional Facility, as well as build a new health care building, a programs and services building, a kitchen and laundry facility, intake and release, and an administration building. The county will provide 10 percent of the funding for the project, $4 million, which has been set aside for capital projects in the recently approved budget.

John Latorraca opened in 1990 and was not intended to house the diverse classification of inmates that it does. The county conducted a needs assessment as part of its application, which concluded the number of inmates in protective custody at John Latorraca has increased significantly over the last decade. The number of inmates with medical conditions and mental health disorders also has increased. The proposed facility updates would address those needs.

“When the John Latorraca correctional center was built – it’s now antiquated and dilapidated – they didn’t build that jail to provide security for the type of inmates we’re housing now,” Merced County Sheriff Vern Warnke said. “The design of the new jail is all about safety and being able to provide programs. The current system is so labor intensive, and with so many classifications, it’s dangerous to staff and inmates. The new jail design takes a lot of that and makes it so that we are able to provide these necessities as far as programs are concerned.”

New emphasis on recidivism reduction

Under California’s Assembly Bill 109, the Public Safety Realignment Act, most known for prison realignment, law enforcement agencies began looking for ways to reduce recidivism and found programs were successful, Sullivan said.

“We want to be tough on crime,” Warnke said, “but we’ve got to figure out a way to break the cycle. We can lock (criminals) up, but once we lock them up that’s their spanking. Like any parent, we need to take up the problem and try not to have these spankings anymore.”

That’s done through treatment and education programs, Sullivan said.

“We need to provide the opportunity for inmates to receive treatment and resources in our facility to prepare them for when they’re out in the community,” he said.

At John Latorraca, that’s hard to do with only two classrooms when opposing gang members must be separated, Sullivan said. Currently, the jail offers programs such as life skills, anger management, employment readiness, behavioral change plan, domestic violence education, individual cognitive behavior therapy, and substance abuse treatment and education.

“We don’t have the classroom space to put on the various programs we wish to expand on,” Sullivan said.

The design for the jail addresses those issues with a 10,000-square-foot building just for programs and services. The building design includes eight classrooms and two exam rooms. The health care building will be 10,000 square feet and include a clinic, nurses station and 30 mental health beds. The proposal includes a 12,000-square-foot kitchen and laundry facility, and an administration building at 6,500 square feet.

The renovations and new buildings will offer more security and sturdier construction. For example, the current air conditioning system is a rooftop model typically used on homes or light commercial buildings. The new buildings and updates would include a central system that could maintain a building’s temperature 24/7 with no issues, said Richard Schwarz, the county’s assistant director for capital projects. Also, the walls would be concrete.

State funding imperative, officials say

When the county applied for funding under SB 1022, it did not demonstrate there were available funds and failed to complete an environmental study.

This time, though the scoring process will be different, the county has guaranteed itself points, Sullivan said. At a final budget hearing on Tuesday, the Merced County Board of Supervisors approved the 2015-16 budget, which included the $4 million designated for the jail update. The board also passed a resolution permitting the submission of the application, and the necessary environmental study was completed this week.

The scoring committee also rates applications based on the needs assessment.

Merced County will compete against other medium-size counties for the money.

The Board of State and Community Corrections may choose to only fund part of the project, Schwarz said.

“I don’t know if the county can come up with the balance if we don’t get the full $40 million,” he said. “If the state only gives us $30 million, I can’t see how they can require that we deliver the entire proposal that we submitted.”

The plan for the future is to eventually consolidate the Merced County Main Jail with the John Latorraca facility at the Sandy Mush location, Sullivan said. “The needs assessment helped lay out a road map for the next 20 years,” he said. “We’re taking it one step at a time.”

In the meantime, the Merced County Main Jail will continue to operate.

Sullivan is hoping the work and preparation put into the application process will pay off.

This story was originally published August 21, 2015 at 7:00 PM with the headline "Merced County tries again for jail renovation funding."