Keep Bailing

As of this Tuesday, all inmates who are now booked into Orange County jails will have their immigration status checked via fingerprint identification. Prior to this, the inmates were screened by specially trained deputies upon arrival and those who were found to be foreign born had their immigration status checked even further.

Orange County jail officials will join 11 other California county jails such as Los Angeles, San Diego and Ventura which have already implemented procedures for checking the identification of inmates using a federal database to identify immigrants who land in their jails.

A national database, which Read more »

Santa Ana — In continued controversy over early release of inmates, an Orange County Superior Court judge has decided against Sheriff deputy union members, denying their request Thursday to halt the early release of Orange County inmates.

Reportedly, Judge Steven Perk wants the final decision left in the hands of Sheriff Sandra Hutchens stating, “How do I issue an order to the board of supervisors telling the sheriff how to run the jail… if I don’t have jurisdiction over that person, then I don’t have the authority.”

The Association of Orange County Deputy Sheriffs wanted to put a stop Read more »

Ah… the holidays.  A joyous time for overindulging in every sort of way.  Evidently, in Los Angeles, more than 1,000 people must have partied too much, because this is the staggering number of arrests made for driving under the influence during a week long crackdown campaign by the CHP that lasted right on through to Christmas Day. This law enforcement coalition, known as AVOID, has announced that no less than 1,030 DUI arrests were made as compared to 969 during the same period last year.

This year, the California Highway Patrol was especially busy on Read more »

Last week, AccreditedBail had a post called “Accountability and Transparency for Pretrial Release Programs“. They reviewed the dollars and cents cost to Orange County Florida’s government for what we know as “Release On Own Recognizance” or basically a defendant who is released with a promise to appear in court.

Surprising was the $1.7 million in taxpayer funds that it takes to screen, release and supervise defendants out on the county’s pretrial release program. You would want to balance that against bail bonds: cost to the tax payer Zero ($0.00).

Pretrial release has a purpose which is codified by law: to help the indigent who have no prior record and are accused of non-violent crimes. Again, balance that with our prior post on Van Nuys Jail “Bail vs. O.R.” Clearly, Read more »

Most every county jail has a website, including the Orange County Jail. The websites provide all kinds of information, including inmate information and can be used by anyone who has access to a computer. For Lake County, Sheriff’s are now delaying the posted information by 2 days. Their reasons for delaying the information is that they feel that bail bondsmen are obtaining information about recently booked inmates and heading to the jail to illegally solicit bail business, which is a misdemeanor offense.

Bail bondsmen are believed to be lying to the jailers, indicating Read more »

Over the next 2 years, the Orange County Sheriff’s department is said to be short $88 million with regards to their budget. Their plan? Replace deputies in the Orange County Jail with civilians. Supposedly this will save them $10 million per year. Other creative cost-saving techniques are being explored by Orange County Sheriff Sandra Hutchens.

The idea is Read more »

Mendez was once a Long Beach Police officer and now finds himself in jail. Orange County District Attorney’s office gave a statement according to the Orange County Register that the problem started in October when Mendez saw his ex-girlfriend and two other girls driving around at 3:30 in the morning. He pulled a gun on them, ordered them to pull over, fired shots in the air, yanked the ex-girlfriend out of the car, continued to fire shots in the air, and beat up on the ex-girlfriend. Meanwhile, the other girls ran for their life and called 911.

Mendez got 6 months in jail, 3 years probation and a 52 week treatment program. And, of course, now he’s lost his job.

Sometimes it seems like there’s a fine line between breaking the law and enforcing the law Read more »

The Orange County Jail isn’t the best place for anyone to spend time. Probably one of the reasons the place keeps our bail company fairly busy. Now the jail is under investigationby the U.S. Department of Justice .

The Orange County Jail has had allegations ongoing for quite some time, but now things have stepped up with the justice department getting involved. One of the latest cases was most likely broke the straw that broke the camel’s back and caused the increase in interest. A deputy at the Theo Lacy Jail allegedly Read more »