The Abridged version:
- Yolo County officials spent $34 million for a new branch jail based on inmate projections that never materialized.
- The 150 new beds at Leinberger Center in Woodland remain unused nearly two years after the building opened.
- The Yolo County Sheriff’s Office blames staffing problems.
Former Sheriff Ed Prieto had been working in Yolo County for three decades when he described a dire situation in the county’s jails in 2015.
At the Leinberger Center, a smaller jail branch for low-level offenses, the aging walls were riddled with fist-sized holes in the drywall. It wasn’t uncommon to find contraband hidden between the slats. Pipes in the bathrooms were exposed. The roof was leaking, the HVAC system was faltering, and floor tiles were cracking from three decades of heavy foot traffic.
In a request for funds filed with the Board of State and Community Corrections, the sheriff warned jail bookings were on the rise and the dilapidated facilities could not accommodate the number of people and security level required in the coming years.
State officials were convinced and in 2019 gave the county $30.5 million of the $34.3 million price tag for a new 150-bed facility in Woodland. The building was finished in March 2023. County officials cut a large green ribbon to commemorate the facility in December 2023.
Nearly two years later, its cells have never been occupied.
“It’s not being used for dormitory housing, which is what the main use it was intended for,” acknowledged Capt. Juan Ceja of the Yolo County Sheriff’s Office.
The most regularly used parts of the Leinberger Center are the new locker rooms, which detention staff use daily. The sheriff’s work release program and an electronic monitoring program operate out of the Leinberger Center as well, Ceja said.
Projects aimed at rehabilitation – a new culinary arts program that would help train people to become cooks, a more robust family reunification program and in-depth education programs – have not opened.
Prisoner increase never materialized
By the time Prieto asked the state for funds in 2015, Yolo County’s law enforcement leaders had spent several years warning of the potential for overcrowding in the jails. In the early 2010s, statewide public safety realignment and 2014’s Proposition 47 reclassified some drug crimes as misdemeanors and shifted those convicted of nonviolent crimes from state prisons. County jails across the state saw an increase in prisoners, according to data from the Board of State and Community Corrections.
In 2015, Prieto said the county would need 179 to 239 more beds in its jails in the next four years, and sought state funds for the jail project.
By the end of 2019, as state officials granted $30.5 million for the new jail branch, the county’s jail population had already begun to drop. In the five years spent waiting for the funds, the average annual jail population in Yolo County dropped 27%, or 122 people.
The project could have stopped
Yolo County still had time to stop the project.
When the jail proposal arrived before the Yolo County Board of Supervisors for a final vote in February 2020, it was approved with a 12-minute conversation.
Five months later, the circumstances had changed even more, and one supervisor tried to stop the project.
COVID-19 gripped the globe, and incarceration and criminal justice policies in the United States came under renewed scrutiny as George Floyd’s murder at the hand of Minneapolis police altered the landscape.
Don Saylor, then a member of the Yolo County Board of Supervisors, voiced skepticism over whether the population numbers necessitated building a new jail.
“If we are 10 years down the road, and we look back and say ‘man, we could have built that facility, now we need it,’ that’s going to pass us by,” countered Sheriff Tom Lopez, who had replaced Prieto in 2019.
“Or, we could have an empty building and be wondering if we should open it up for daytime gym,” Saylor responded.
Saylor moved to discontinue the project, but was outvoted by other supervisors.
Jail population remains low
Yolo County’s average jail population remains far below what was envisioned when the new facility was sought. In June this year, the average daily population at the main jail was 257 – compared to 397 in May 2015 and 461 in 2014.
The Yolo County Sheriff’s Office declined to comment on the jail population projections that were used to justify the new jail.
“There were folks who were saying the sky was falling and that there was going to be a need to double the number of jail beds,” said Supervisor Oscar Villegas. “I’m proud to be able to say the sky didn’t fall.”
Villegas sat on the board when his colleagues approved the plans for the Leinberger branch in 2020 but recused himself because he worked for the California Board of State and Community Corrections.
During his time working at the state corrections agency, he saw the decades-long push to move people from state prisons toward county jails closer to their homes. He said the intent was to ensure better access to programs that could make a difference in a person’s life.
“We’re maximizing the ability for people to have the best outcomes,” Villegas said.
He said he stands by the county’s choice to build the facility and believed the projections were accurate.
County jail populations decrease across California
The number of people incarcerated in county jails has decreased across California since 2014, according to data collected by Board of State and Community Corrections.
The agency declined to comment on the jail capacity calculations made by Yolo County.
“It would be difficult for the BSCC to determine if the need was overstated as there are a variety of statewide dynamics, and recent state policy shifts, that impact local jail populations — with almost all of them outside an individual sheriff’s ability to project,” spokesperson Jana Sanford-Miller said in an email.
Staffing shortages have made it difficult for at least three counties to operate new detention facilities at full capacity, including jails in Plumas, Tuolumne and Trinity counties, according to the agency. “Staffing to some degree is a concern for the majority of our counties, especially for small counties,” Sanford-Miller said.
Jail officials cite staffing problems
Ceja cited staffing is the main reason the Leinberger branch remains empty. He said the sheriff’s Office is releasing some offenders because of the staff shortage and is approving hundreds of hours of overtime to ensure adequate coverage.
The county has 26 vacant positions among an allotted staff of 120 correctional officers, Ceja said. Staffing the Leinberger Center would require at least 20 of those positions to be filled, he said.
The hiring process has been slow — taking up to six months in Yolo County from recruitment to sign-on — and only a small percentage of applicants are actually hired. In 2024, 143 out of 417 applicants were granted interviews. Just 13 were hired. As of May this year, seven officers were hired from a pool of 330 applications, according to a report by the Yolo County Grand Jury.
“I think if people knew what they did, they might be interested in the career,” Ceja said. “I don’t think there’s very much interest in the career field itself.”
Is the jail needed at all?
While the main jail has 345 beds, staffing levels and the number of people incarcerated with higher-level crimes affect how many of those beds can be in use, according to the Sheriff’s Office. In 2024, 18 people were released from the jail due to capacity concerns, according to the grand jury report. So far this year, only two people have been released due to capacity issues.
Tracie Olson, Yolo County’s chief public defender, said that the jail is no longer needed as the jail population has dropped.
“We don’t need it,” Olson said. “The county cannot afford to staff it without jeopardizing funding for better, client-centered uses.”
It remains unclear whether the new facility’s 150 beds will ever be needed. The main jail has 345 beds but is using on average just 280.
Villegas remains optimistic the facility will fully open, citing a “a perfect storm” that has prevented its full use. “We’re confident that it will open once the right people are recruited and put in place,” he said.
The sheriff does not have a timeline for opening the jail.
Felicia Alvarez is a reporter at Abridged covering accountability. She’s called Sacramento home since 2015 and has reported on government, health care and breaking news topics for both local and national news outlets.
