50 New Prison Hearing Officers Sought

Citing Wednesday’s riot at Central Jail, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors on Thursday unanimously voted to ask Gov. George Deukmejian to authorize the hiring of 50 new state hearing officers to cut the holding time of inmates awaiting transfer to state prisons. Supervisor Kenneth Hahn, who called for the action, said severe overcrowding in the county jail system could be relieved if backlogged cases--now totaling 2,800 convicted felons--could be moved out of the county system more quickly.

The vast majority of the overflow are prisoners who have been arrested for parole violations and are being held in the county system until they can be sent back to state prisons or the California Youth Authority. County officials said such prisoners sit in county jails for an average of 45 days before receiving a hearing on the parole violation charges, because the state has only 29 hearing officers to handle all of California.

“We need at least 50 hearing officers in Los Angeles County alone to eliminate the backlog,” Hahn told the board.

Dan Wolf, a Hahn aide, said the board was unaware until this week that “such a large number of county inmates are affected by this lack of hearing officers. We were in the dark about these 45-day delays while people wait for what should be a simple hearing.”

Wolf said the state is paying the county $2 million a month to house, feed and provide medical care for the felons in county jails, and the state could apply that money toward the hiring of hearing officers. He said it is not clear whether the additional hearing officers would have to be paid the full $57,000 a year typically earned by current hearing officers, noting that retired judges might be asked to step into the jobs.

He said county officials believe most of the new positions could be temporary, lasting only as long as is needed to wipe out the huge backlog of parole violators.

The jail uprising Wednesday was set off by a fight between an inmate and a jail officer, after which 100 members of a street gang barricaded themselves outside their cells, fashioning weapons from cell equipment and drainage grates. Seven sheriff’s deputies and about 60 inmates were injured during the melee, which ended when county marksmen fired non-lethal rubber projectiles at the inmates.