Officers prepare for new schedule at Santa Maria Jail

Posted: Jun 24, 2011 5:14 PM by Danielle Lerner
Updated: Jun 24, 2011 9:43 PM

Starting Monday officers in Santa Maria will have to check the schedule to see if they can book suspected criminals into county jail.

Last week Santa Barbara County Supervisors approved the 2011-2012 budget. They allocated $360,000 for the Santa Maria jail. That will keep it open Thursday, Friday and Saturday from 8 p.m. to 4 a.m. All other days, officers in North County will have to either cite and release, or transport anyone arrested to the main jail in Goleta.

Santa Maria's Police Chief, Dan Macagni, says the department has been trying to work out the logistics of the change for the past week. They need to find a way to keep criminals off the streets, while offering the same level of protection to the community.

Macagni says it will require a lieutenant's approval before officers can transport a person to the Goleta main jail. They will consider things like the severity of the crime and the likelihood it will happen again. If the person does not post a serious threat, he or she will likely be cited and released.

At one point the supervisors considered shutting down the Santa Maria jail completely, but Macagni says letting criminals back out on the street goes against everything his department stands for.

"We didn't get into this business to run a revolving door, we got into this business to make a difference in society and take bad people off the street and put them in jail where they belong," Macagni said.

Each person will be evaluated on a case by case basis. Some will have to sit hooked to the railing at the police department, sporting pink handcuffs, while officers make their decision.

This is going to be a tough transition for the department but Chief Macagni wants to emphasize that serious, violent criminals will go to jail no matter what.

The partial closure comes as the Santa Barbara County Sheriff's Office faces the worst budget cuts in decades.