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Past wide-open fields about 10 miles south of Merced stands the Merced County Adult Correctional Facility, a nondescript 87,000-square-foot jail built in 1990 to house minimum security inmates.
More than 30 jailbreaks later, the $12 million facility for low-risk convicts - known as Sandy Mush - has become a 546-bed warehouse of men and women mostly charged with felonies waiting for their day in court.
Behind its swirling razor-wire topped fences, Sandy Mush is like a small city, equipped with a sewer treatment plant, an infirmary, a commissary and a kitchen large enough to make 2,000 meals a day.
It has been upgraded to hold higher-risk inmates, but even with the improvements to security, law enforcement officials say the jail is still housing a larger and more violent population than it was designed for.
Sandy Mush replaced the Belcher Road facility, the county's honor farm, which incarcerated minimum security inmates - such as repeat drunken driving offenders and petty thieves.
Since then, increased gang violence, drug manufacturing and hard-core criminal activity has seen the inmate population shift.
Hundreds of lower-risk inmates are now being released to make room for those facing more serious charges.
"There's a large misperception of the correctional facility in Merced County," said Mark Pazin, who was sworn in as Merced County sheriff in January 2003. "Unfortunately the inmate population has changed dramatically."
The escape of Carlton Ray Tolbert and Jason Cho Warchol in January illustrates this point, he said.
When they escaped, Tolbert was being held on concealed weapons charges and possession of a destructive device, and Warchol was detained on charges of driving a stolen car.
Both were caught a short time after escaping, but not before each wracked up additional criminal charges.
Tolbert was returned to custody after allegedly forcing a woman at gunpoint to flee from a CHP officer who pulled the two over.
Warchol was returned to custody after a store video camera taped him cashing stolen checks and riding away with an accomplice in a stolen vehicle.
A changing inmate population
As the population of the county has grown by about 50,000 people since 1990, the number of those accused and convicted of serious felonies also has increased.
From the courts to jails, the criminal justice system in Merced is overloaded, say court and law enforcement officials.
"The caseload is extremely heavy and obviously each year it increases," said Frank Dougherty, the presiding judge of the Merced County Superior Court. "Our work is dependent upon the arrests that are made in the county, and unfortunately, the county's population has increased. Complicating that is the fact that gang-involved crimes are also increasing," he said.
Across the state, since 2000, each year the percentage of non-sentenced jail inmates has hit a record high. Last year, 65 percent of all those held in California jails were non-sentenced inmates awaiting court proceedings.
At Sandy Mush last year, 75 percent of the inmate population was not sentenced.
As recently as 1997, the majority of those staying there were convicted and serving sentences.
Measures have been taken to expedite sentencing and arraignments, but the fact remains: More people are being arrested than the county can incarcerate.
Strong enforcement of tougher drug and domestic violence laws that were passed in the 1990s have also helped swell the jail's rolls, at times spilling beyond its capacity, according to Sheriff Pazin.
He said that inmates at Sandy Mush range from methamphetamine manufacturers, reputed gang members involved in violent crimes and others facing serious charges.
When inmates are booked, they go through a 20-minute identification process, listing heath conditions, scars, tattoos, gang affiliations and other particulars.
Later, they go through a classification process based on the crimes they're being charged with, gang affiliation, race or a number of other factors that help determine where they will stay in the jail.
Fourteen different colored jumpsuits are worn by inmates to help identify them based on charges, behavior and risk.
Most inmates stay in separate dormitories consisting of up to 24 inmates, but those who are at high risk or who pose a risk to others are held in protective custody in cells that hold one to two people.
These people range from what inmates refer to as "snitches" and "baby rapers" to gang-dropouts and violent offenders who can't be housed with others.
Officials say that the classification process was adopted as a measure to increase inmate safety.
Without it, they say that fights - which are almost a daily occurrence - would be more frequent and more difficult to control.
Last May, Francisco Picaso Perea, 39, Atwater, was found beaten to death in a general population cell after he returned from court after new charges of sexually abusing a child were filed against him. Perea was previously being held on domestic violence charges.
The problem of overcrowding
A lawsuit against the jail in 1993 led to a federal court order forcing jailers to reduce the number of inmates in custody to 90 percent capacity.
But maintaining that threshold requires a difficult balancing act that law-and-order types like Pazin don't like to perform.
Last year, 650 inmates were released early from Sandy Mush. This year, 80 inmates have been let go early.
"No sheriff or police chief wants to do that," Pazin said of the early releases.
Curtis Hill, chairman of the State Sheriff's Corrections and Detentions Subcommittee, said that 11,000 inmates are released early into California communities every month because of overcrowding.
As sheriff of San Benito County, Hill said overcrowding is something he has to consider constantly as he watches the daily inmate count approach the maximum capacity.
"These are the decisions that sheriffs are making," he said. "I don't know any sheriff in the state that is not running a facility near margin."
The sheriff in Merced said an expansion of Sandy Mush or a new jail is necessary.
Others think more alternatives to incarceration should be explored.
Without major reform, they say the overcrowding problem will only continue.
"Jail crowding is a natural result of the sentencing policies without a whole lot of alternatives," said Barbara Owens, a criminology professor at California State University Fresno.
Owens, who wrote her dissertation at UC Berkeley on correctional officers and prison culture, has also worked with the Federal Bureau of Prisons as a research analyst.
"Because the jails are funded at the county level, I think the problems are even more immense," she said. "But it's really part of a larger trend."
Treatment for drug addiction, she said, is far more effective than incarceration.
Dougherty, the presiding judge of the Merced County Superior Court, said Proposition 36, passed by voters in 2000, has reduced the number of inmates in jail on drug convictions.
The initiative allows first and second-time, non-violent, simple drug possession offenders the option to receive substance abuse treatment instead of incarceration.
"That has actually decreased the number of people we have that are in custody for drug cases," he said.
Correctional division understaffed
Mark Pace, president of the Merced County Sheriff's Employee Association, said inmate-to-guard ratios at Sandy Mush are low. But he doesn't expect to see the number of officers increase any time soon.
"It's easier to get funds to build a facility than it is to get the county to staff it," he said.
With an average ratio of one guard to 92 inmates, the Merced County civil grand jury has consistently identified staffing levels as a contributor to unsafe conditions.
Pace said years of neglect of the correctional division of the Sheriff's Department have led to such low staffing levels.
"More cops on the street is fantastic, but the problem right now is bed space," he said. "It does no good to put more police on the street when you can't keep the people they're arresting."
Pace said that while most inmates behave themselves when their basic needs are met, a few unruly inmates can create serious problems that take the guards' attention away from other inmates.
From throwing cups of urine at correctional officers, known as gassing, to building makeshift batons with newspapers and dried toothpaste and saliva, he said Sandy Mush is no longer just a place for low-level offenders.
Inmates charged with attempted murder, assault with deadly weapons suspects and serious drug offenders have all been held there.
"It really is ludicrous," said Pazin of the guard-to-inmate ratio at Sandy Mush. "Say they turn on you, it can get really ugly really fast."
However, given the likely impact the state budget crisis will have on the county this year, it is unlikely the county's correctional division, which collected around $250,000 in overtime last year, will see its $12 million annual budget increases.
"This county can only go so far so fast with our construction and staffing efforts," said Dee Tatum, the county executive officer. "In terms of the general fund, we're looking at a horrendous year and a horrific picture that is no longer a slope, but a cliff."
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