Tuesday, Aug. 28, 2007 • Jail gets top rating again

Publisher’s note: This story originally appeared in the Tuesday, Aug. 28 edition of the Lassen County Times.

For the second time in three years, the Lassen County jail is the highest rated adult detention facility in California.

The jail received a compliance rating of 100 percent for procedures and operations during a recent inspection of 123 areas by the Corrections Standards Authority, Sheriff Steve Warren reported last week. The jail received the same rating it earned in September 2005.

“The last time I reported … we had 100 compliance rating. We have that same rating again,” Warren said. “So, once again we’re the highest in the state.”

The adult detention facility received 98.9 percent compliance rating for its physical plant, which included reviews of temporary holding cells, dormitories, exercise yards, bunks and other areas. That compares to a 95.5 in 2005.

The corrections authority inspected the annual training audit for uniformed peace officers on Aug. 8.

“Again we came up with a 100 percent compliance rating in that area and that may be a first. I’m really not sure what we came up with in the previous one, but I know that it was close to 100 … and you can’t get any higher than that also.”

On Aug. 14-16 the state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation conducted a biennial (every two years) program compliance audit for the Community Correctional Facility at the jail, which houses return-to-custody prison parole violators.

Once again, the CCF received a 96 percent compliance rating for 75 areas inspected, including administration, personnel, training, discipline, safety and security.

“This time we had no areas of non-compliance and a few of partial compliance,” he said. “This is the highest rating that you can actually get.”

Prior to 2005, the highest rating the CCF achieved on the audit was 95 percent and the highest the jail ever had was a 98 percent, according to Warren.

Warren added the 2006-2007 Grand Jury report is a credit to what the jail and CCF are doing on a daily basis. The grand jury commended the jail for “a staff that has far exceeded the expectations of this committee for a well-run facility.”

The grand jury also suggested the board find the funding to make the salaries and benefits for jail personnel more competitive, “thereby improving employee retention.”

The report pointed out the facility, which opened in 1991, houses 164 state inmates and 149 county inmates. The jail receives $46 a day for inmates sent to Lassen County from overcrowded jails in other counties. In the year preceding the report, income from inmates sent from other counties totaled $20,000.