No Room in the Lorain County Jail
With Lorain’s City Jail slated to close in a few weeks, Lorain County Sheriff Phil Stammitti is scrambling to figure out how to legally and safely accommodate the additional prisoners he will have to take in. Reported in the Morning Journal.
After the county’s half-percent sales tax increase failed last week, Stammitti said he will have to operate a jail that has cost more than $12 million a year to run with less funding while also dealing with overcrowding issues.
The sales tax increase would have been used for the criminal justice services. It failed 35,302 to 48,074, according to unofficial Lorain County Board of Elections results.
“We live off the sales tax, which didn’t pass,” Stammitti said. “The county can not absorb any more of these costs.”
The county pays $92 per day to house an inmate. Inmates have stayed in the county jail for as long as 18 months and one stayed four years. The county is also stuck with any medical bills for treatment prisoners need while in its custody. One prisoner had three heart attacks last year, costing the county about $80,000, Stammitti said.
Because Lorain and Elyria police and the sheriff’s office all run their own dispatch centers, Stammitti said combining the centers could potentially be one way to save money.
Overcrowding is another issue Stammitti is dealing with. There are 422 beds in the county jail, but there are usually more inmates than that locked up. When the jail runs out of beds, inmates are given a mattress, a plastic cot and put in common rooms until a bunk is available. The jail can not release inmates early, Stammitti said.
Currently, each of the 102 correctional officers is assigned to oversee 48 prisoners. The officers will have to patrol additional prisoners when Lorain’s City Jail closes.
County Commissioner Ted Kalo has been working with other elected officials to go through the county jail’s operating budget line by line looking for savings. He said the biggest problem is operating without the needed capital, but said overcrowding is just as pertinent.
Kalo said he anticipates the jail will take on between 60 and 70 additional prisoners between the Lorain and Elyria jails closing, 34 of which will come from Lorain.
“We need to talk to courts on how to get some of the lower level offenders out of the jail so we don’t end up with lawsuits or any issues with prisoners.”
Stammitti said he would support programs for low-risk prisoners instead of throwing them in jail. About 30 percent of the jail’s current population has a misdemeanor, or minor, offense, he said.
“The answer is not building a bigger and better jail,” Stammitti said. “Let’s keep the most violent people in jail and get programs for repeat offenders. It would be cheaper than keeping these guys in jail.”
Thirty percent of the offenders at the county jail are serving time for misdemeanors, he said.
The jail is currently taking in who would have gone to Elyria’s jail, which closed last month. Elyria decided to close the jail because of a significant lack of revenue this year, city Safety Service Director Chris Eichenlaub said. Twelve officers and three supervisors were laid off.
Lorain Mayor Anthony Krasienko said he is still looking at ways to keep his city’s jail open and operating, but would not discuss any of his ideas. He sent out layoff notices to Lorain’s three correctional officers who run the jail last week.
“The city of Lorain never wanted to be in the jail business,” Krasienko said. “When we got out, we had no intention of ever getting back in. We only went back in as a last resort necessity because we had nowhere to take our prisoners.”
The city jail was closed in 2004 because of high operating costs. It reopened May 2, 2008, after City Council approved spending more than $300,000 for renovations. The jail is used as a 12-day holding facility with 34 beds.
Like the first time it closed, Lorain police Chief Cel Rivera said officers will be forced to issue citations instead of taking offenders off the streets. The other option is for officers to charge offenders under state codes so they can be sent to the county jail without cost to the city. If people are charged under city ordinance violations and sent to the county, it costs the city about $75 a day per prisoner.
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