Burbank reduces jail population to slow spread of the coronavirus
The Burbank Police Department has begun to reduce the number of people booked into its jail as part of the city’s response to the increasing coronavirus outbreak.
The department has begun to issue more citations for low-level offenses and to release inmates who have been booked for misdemeanors. The rationale is to cut down on the number of incarcerated people housed closely together to slow the spread of the virus.
Sgt. Derek Green, a department spokesman, said while the jail can house 70 people, fewer than 10 people were incarcerated as of Thursday afternoon.
“The reality for us is that we’re not that busy of a jail to begin with,” he said. “On any given night we sometimes have an empty jail, and that’s just the way it is here in Burbank.”
Green said he doesn’t expect the new directive will change how the department operates its jail and that it doesn’t mean officers will stop enforcing laws and making arrests, adding it’s not a “free for all.”
People who are alleged to have committed violent crimes or other major felonies will still be arrested.
While the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health confirmed the first case of the coronavirus in Burbank on Thursday, there have been no reported instances of someone at the jail becoming infected with the virus that causes COVID-19.
Green said the department does have a protocol in place with Providence St. Joseph Medical Center to screen for any potential cases.
The hospital would be notified of a possible case and the arrestee would be brought to an intake point outside the medical center to be screened by a St. Joseph’s staff member.
Currently the department hasn’t had the need to implement the protocol, according to Green.
Officers do conduct a cursory medical screening during the jail’s intake process wearing gloves throughout the process. Green said the screening doesn’t go in-depth and is meant to only catch for obvious signs of medical distress.
Burbank Police Chief Scott LaChasse brought up the possibility of closing the jail in response to the pandemic during Tuesday’s City Council meeting but said it would involve transporting inmates to other facilities and paying the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department to house them.
Green said the department has no plans to close the jail and would be a last resort option that would involve an order from the county or state to happen.
“We certainly don’t have this influx of inmates that the county jail and larger cities have to begin with,” he said. “But it could become a reality down the road.”
Even then, the sheriff’s department is also working on reducing its jail population in response to the outbreak. The Los Angels Times reported that the county’s jail population has been reduced by about 6% over the last three weeks since it began to cite-out low-level offenders.
On Friday the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office said in a statement it was also working at reducing the jail population by having prosecutors “not request that defendants be remanded on probation or parole violations on nonviolent and non-serious crimes” unless the person is shown to be a danger to the community.
