Hutchens Fever continues unabated in certain political precincts, notwithstanding that, as Adam Probolsky pointed out, many of those infatuated with her candidacy have only met her in the last couple of days or weeks, and know next to nothing about her.

As evidence of her qualification to be OC Sheriff, Sandra Hutchens' points to her experience and leadership in the LA County Sheriff's Department, where she rose to the rank of Division Chief. I don't question her accomplishments, but if one is going to spotlight high-level policy-making experience in the LASD as a qualification, then LASD policies are fair game.

One such issue is jail overcrowding, which is a pressing problem here in Orange County. Here is a hair-raising May 14, 2006 Los Angeles Times story on the LASD's early-release program. Given that early-release has beeen an issue between

The article highlights how Hutchens former boss (and current supporter) LA Sheriff Lee Baca initiated a large-scale early-release policy in 2002 that four years had led to the release of 150,000 county inmates "after serving fractions of their sentences":

•  Nearly 16,000 inmates -- more than 10% of those released early -- were rearrested and charged with new crimes while they were supposed to be incarcerated.

•  Nearly 2,000 of those rearrested were released early a second time, only to be arrested again while they should have been behind bars. Hundreds of those people cycled through jail three or more times. One example of the revolving door: A 55-year-old woman was released early in 2002 on an assault charge, only to be rearrested three days later on suspicion of another assault. Over the next three years, she was released early 15 times and rearrested 19 times when she was supposed to be locked up.

Sheriff Baca, who support Hutchens touts, exihibited the following attitude toward specific orders by judges not to release prisoners early:

Broom pulled the envelope of Rosa Louise Degraw. A blond, plump face glared from a booking photo. The jail's computer showed that Degraw was serving a 180-day jail sentence for battery and vandalism. With time off for good behavior, she was supposed to serve about four months.

Degraw's sentencing documents contained an explicit directive from the judge: "No early release."

Instead, 33 days after she was booked, Degraw was eligible to go.

"The sheriff says, 'It doesn't mean anything. I've got to get them out of my jails,' " said Broom's supervisor, Greg Sivard.

Now, given their tussling with Acting Sheriff Jack Anderson's tussling over the issue of early release, I would think the Board of Supes (if they haven't already) would be curious as to Hutchens judgment about her former boss's attitude.

Here's another reassuring tidbit:

Until The Times asked for data, sheriff's officials had not tracked how often inmates were rearrested when they would otherwise have been behind bars. In February, the officials hastily conducted an analysis of rearrests before giving the newspaper data on more than 2 million bookings into the jail since 1999.

The Sheriff's Department analysis, which looked at the seven years of data as a whole, concluded that inmates released early were no more likely to re-offend than those who were not.

But The Times found distinct differences when it compared the years before the jail closures with those after. As fewer served full terms, rearrests within 90 days of release increased for all inmates. Those released early after the policy change were more likely to be rearrested within 90 days than inmates who served their full jail time.

The Times analysis also showed that although the number of inmates released early increased 15-fold after mid-2002, arrests of people with time left on their sentences rose about 60-fold, from 266 to 15,775. Rearrests for violent and life-threatening crimes soared from 74 before the jail closures to more than 4,000 since.

How about this:

Most of the time, the decision to free an inmate comes down to a simple mathematical calculation. A first-time offender is treated the same as a career criminal. There is no penalty for prisoners who have been rearrested while on early release. Prior convictions for violent crimes are not taken into consideration.

But while  violence-prone criminals were being let free after serviing a fraction of their sentences, the LASD insisted on hookers doing their full stretch:

In recent months, for example, sheriff's deputies have cracked down on prostitution in parts of South Los Angeles and Compton. Current guidelines say prostitutes arrested there "shall serve 100% of their sentence, and shall NOT be released [early]."

Now, in response to Peggy Lowe's question about how to deal with jail overcrowding, Hutchens gave a long, programmatic response that could be boiled down to "I'll study the matter" and closed with "I will work with the presiding judge, the district attorney, the public defender, parole, and probation to impact some of these system-wide issues."

That's great, but Acting Sheriff Jack Anderson (whom Walters has pledged to keep on but Hutchens has not) is already doing that and more.

What the Supes ought to ask themsevles is whether a Sheriff Hutchens will emulate the example of her long-time former boss Lee Baca -- summed up thus by LAPD Chief William Bratton:

"It's an amazing system. I've never seen anything like it," he said. "The police, prosecutors and judges -- sometimes even a jury -- have made decisions, and you have the ability to arbitrarily undo all of that."