State regulators may force Dallas County TX to move up to 900 prisoners out of its largest and most-populated jail tower because of lingering fire-safety concerns.  Report from the Dallas Morning News.

If so, the county would probably have to reopen the Decker jail that was recently depopulated so the county could centralize its jail operations on the Lew Sterrett Justice Center campus.  The moving of so many prisoners would not only be costly at a time when the county is staring at a $60 million budget shortfall, it also would create logistical headaches.  Because the north tower jail houses those accused of the most serious crimes, the question would be where to put them. Decker can hold up to 1,080 inmates but it is a minimum-security jail. The new $65 million south tower jail that recently opened can take another 400 inmates, officials say. But it doesn’t have high-risk inmates because its guards work inside inmate housing areas …

Faulty smoke-detection and removal systems there contributed to the county’s seventh-straight failed inspection in March. If the jail commissioners are not satisfied with the county’s progress, they might consider rescinding a 1994 exception to state rules that allowed the county to add 928 extra bunks to the north tower’s cells, some county officials say …

The county’s temporary plan is to install a portable exhaust fan system to help suck smoke out of the building, Price said. It will consist of gigantic fans with hoses that will plug into ports in the cells.  The longer-term solution is to hire a firm to re-balance the north tower’s air-handling system …  Ryan Brown, the county budget director, estimated that those fixes would cost a half-million dollars and take about six months to complete. Also, the county will replace about 1,600 smoke detectors at $100 each, he said.  ”My hope is that they can see we’ve done enough on a temporary basis to improve safety,” Commissioner Mike Cantrell said. “We’re trying to offer a solution.”

There is a great deal more data and background in the complete article.

vericatrajkova County-State Issues, TX Dallas County, Texas

The state budget crunch has hit the Bristol County MA Sheriff’s Department, which like other county sheriff’s offices regularly turns to the state for supplemental funding during the fiscal year.  Report from the Herald News.

“Every year, it’s the same exercise except this year they’re going to the state and the state is saying ‘We don’t have the money to pay you,’” said Bristol County Treasurer Kevin Finnerty, who predicts the department could run out of cash within weeks.   Sheriff Thomas Hodgson’s office has not paid inmate health care bills or prison utility bills since January so the office can pay its personnel. He estimates the department needs an extra $5.4 million through the end of June. If not, the sheriff said he’ll turn to the National Guard to take over in Bristol County …

More than a budget deficit is keeping the state from helping out, Hodgson said. The sheriff thinks the lack of supplemental funding is payback because he fought against a proposal backed by Gov. Deval Patrick to shift sheriff departments into part of the state government. Hodgson said he has written to Patrick four times since November to warn that if county-run sheriff’s offices aren’t given better funding that services will need to be cut. The governor has not responded, he said.  Hodgson is planning to write again, telling Patrick that he wants to meet with the National Guard to create a contingency plan, he said. “I don’t know how much more clear I can be.”

Finnerty predicts the sheriff’s office will run out of money by May 7, or perhaps a week later, using conservative revenue estimates. The department owes $1.4 million for inmate health care since November, according to the sheriff.   “They don’t have the money to pay those bills and also pay people to watch the inmates,” Finnerty said.

vericatrajkova County-State Issues, Economic Issues, MA Bristol County, Massachusetts

With about 50 empty beds at the Bedford County PA Prison, Warden Dan Keen is optimistic about getting paid to fill those spaces with inmates from Pennsylvania state correctional institutions.

On May 1, Keen will join several other jail wardens from across the state at a Department of Corrections meeting in Elizabethtown to discuss the possibility of sending state prisoners who are near their parole dates to county prisons that likely have more space. “Every state facility in Pennsylvania is overflowing,” said Keen, who added that the new facilities being built won’t be completed for several years.  In the meantime, local jails are being asked to take inmates close to being paroled for a “little bit of profit.”

Keen said he would like to receive $55 a day per inmate for reimbursement, or more than $2,500 a day if the 50 empty beds at the 185-bed jail are filled …

Cambria County Prison Warden John Prebish also will attend the May 1 meeting and said the ability to help out with costs to the county, as well as lower the strain on state institutions, is appealing.  “It’s not cheap to run a jail,” Prebish said. “It’s not a profitable environment for a county. Any way we can offset our costs, we’ll do it.”   The 500-bed facility has about 100 empty beds, although that number jumps up and down significantly depending on things like holding immigration cases in the county …

Blair County Prison Warden Michael Johnston also will attend the meeting and said while he doesn’t know much about the plan’s specifics, it’s an idea he would be open to considering. “Right now, I have some space that I could do that with,” Johnston said. “It would be something I would be very interested in.”   There currently are 48 empty beds in the 342-bed facility. There also are about 10 to 12 state inmates awaiting transfer from the Blair County Prison, down from the 25 that were waiting transfer six weeks ago, Johnston said. He said he would like to see reimbursement for the time in between state-sentencing and transport from the county prisons. Johnston said he currently charges $50 a day for out-of-county inmates, although he may raise that amount to $55, identical to Centre County’s cost, at the beginning of 2010.

vericatrajkova County-State Issues, Economic Issues, Overcrowding, PA Bedford County, PA Blair County, PA Cambria County, Pennsylvania

When the Springfield OR jail opens this fall, about $200,000 will vanish from the coffers of the Lane County Jail in Eugene.  Reported by the Eugene Register-Guard.

That’s how much Springfield pays the county annually to reserve five beds in the jail, — beds that Springfield no longer will need. The loss to the county, if not recovered elsewhere, may mean a decline in service at the county jail.  “That will be an impact to us,” Lane County Sheriff Russ Burger said. “We’ve got to figure out how we’re going to make that up.”

But the county could find itself in an even trickier position: a bidding war with Springfield to lease out jail beds.  The jail relies heavily on renting out beds to supplement the money it gets from the county general fund: Of the county’s $28 million correctional budget, which includes the jail and many other programs, more than $18 million comes from outside sources, including renting space in the jail.  The money the county earns through leasing beds helps cover some of the cost of running the 127 beds that the county provides for local offenders.  “For us, (renting beds) is an absolute necessity,” Burger said. “We would not be able to house as many local offenders if we didn’t lease beds out.”

The U.S. Marshals Service pays the county about $4.5 million a year to rent beds for federal violators. Eugene pays about $800,000 to reserve beds in the county jail. Another $4.5 million comes from the state to rent beds for certain categories of offenders and to fund other correctional work, said Capt. Doug Hooley, county adult corrections division commander.

Competition from Springfield would obviously be unwelcome.

vericatrajkova County-City Issues, County-State Issues, Federal Payments, OR Lane County, Oregon, Prison and Jail Construction, US Marshall's Service

The Tennessee Senate has passed a bill sponsored by state Sen. Steve Southerland designed to help keep Tennessee jails from being decertified by the state over the issue of space requirements for inmates.  A similar bill introduced by state Rep. David Hawk, R-5th, of Greeneville, is pending in the State Government Subcommittee of the Tennessee House of Representatives.

The bill … specifies that the state standards for the square footage of cells in new or existing local correctional facilities must be the minimum federal standards required by the “Performance-Based Standards for Adult Local Detention Facilities” of the American Correctional Association (ACA).  ACA standards require that local jails provide 35 square feet per inmate. At present, though, local jails in Tennessee have to comply with the more stringent 50-square-feet-per-inmate standard required by the Tennessee Corrections Institute (TCI). The standard of 50 square feet per inmate for a single cell was adopted in 1982 by an advisory committee of the TCI …

If a local jail in Tennessee does not meet the TCI standards, the TCI can take away the jail’s state certification. Loss of state certification would leave the local government much more vulnerable to inmate lawsuits.  “This measure will make sure that local jails are not decertified, an action which could cost taxpayers millions of dollars,” Southerland said of his bill.

He added, “It also helps save money when new jails are built.  For example, where a 500-bed jail in Florida cost $32 million to build, the same facility in Tennessee would cost taxpayers $58 million under the current square footage requirements. Local counties could save as much as 30 percent on new facilities while still meeting minimum standards set by the ACA. I am pleased our state senate has adopted this bill.”

A great deal more detail, especially with regard to the legislation’s affect on Greene County can be found in the Greeneville Sun.

vericatrajkova County-State Issues, Overcrowding, Prison and Jail Construction, TN Greene County, Tennessee

A big break could be in the works for some West Virginia Counties when it comes to regional jail costs.  On Wednesday the Senate fast tracked a bill that would force the West Virginia Regional Jail Authority to pay back millions of dollars to counties.  Report from the State Journal.

The reason is because counties say the cost to house inmates is too high. In March the Regional Jail authority announced a surplus of more than $11 million.Cabell County Commissioner Scott Bias has been a supporter of the bill. He says the Regional Jail may have to pay as much as $17 million in jail costs back to the state Department of Corrections and many counties across West Virginia. The bill passed unanimously in the Senate. It now goes to the House for a vote.

vericatrajkova County-State Issues, Regional Jail System, Regional Jails, West Virginia

The Washington Post has reported on the fight of one area to fight NY Department of Corrections plan to close prisons and camps.

On most mornings [in Norwich NY], for about as long as anyone can remember, a green minibus arrives from the outskirts of town and discharges a crew of young men in look-alike gear: green pants and green or red sweat shirts. They rake leaves in the fall and shovel snow in the winter. They paint buildings and clean up debris. They helped put a roof on the county courthouse … The work crews are inmates from the nearby Camp Pharsalia, a minimum-security state prison tucked into a hillside a dozen miles outside town. For the city of Norwich, like other rural Upstate New York communities, the 110-inmate Pharsalia and other prison camps have become something of an economic lifeline, for decades providing not just manpower, but also jobs, in a region where work is hard to come by …

New York is facing a $13 billion deficit, and a falling inmate population, and Gov. David A Paterson (D) has proposed saving about $26 million by shuttering four of the state’s prison facilities, including Camp Pharsalia and nearby Camp Georgetown. Faced with the prospect of losing a big part of their economic base, these small, distressed towns and cities are banding together with a common cry: “Save Our Prison!”…

[M]any struggling, mostly rural, communities came to see prisons as a substitute for the family farms and the small manufacturing plants that were vanishing. “Prison growth was a lot about economic development,” said Tracy Huling, who produced a documentary about the phenomenon, titled “Yes, In My Backyard”.  “It started in the ’80s, when the farm crisis exploded across rural America,” she said. “Agribusiness drove out family farms, and the economic base of a lot of rural communities just collapsed. In the absence of a real recovery strategy to address that, you have a lot of prisons” …

Norwich Mayor Joseph P. Maiurano has calculated the cost, for his city, and for surrounding Chenango County, one of New York’s poorest: Fifty-nine corrections officers, and their family members, may have to leave the area for jobs in other facilities. About 40 local businesses will lose procurement funds. More than 50 local organizations benefit from the work the inmates provide.  The prison is a major employer, but it also has a direct impact on other services, such as postal services. The local post office is largely supported by the huge volume of inmate mail. With the loss of the prison, residents fear the post office could close, too …

The Pharsalia inmates — the vast majority of them from New York City — perform a variety of duties, including maintaining horse and ski trails, working in the public parks and thinning the forests. Maiurano estimated that for the city alone, he would need to hire four additional workers to make up for the loss of the free inmate labor. “Where are we going to get another $100,000-plus dollars?” Maiurano asked in an interview in his office. “We don’t have the income — the growth isn’t here.”

vericatrajkova County-State Issues, Economic Issues, NY Chenango County, New York

Sequoyah County OK Commissioners say the county jail needs more money, Sheriff Ron Lockhart said the sheriff’s office needs more money, and so the county officials are considering a June 9 election on a sales tax.  Reported by the Sequoyah County Times.

The Sequoyah County Jail, in operation since 2003, is losing money because of the lack of prisoners housed on behalf of the state. The county receives $31.50 per prison per day for non-violent inmates housed for the Oklahoma Department of Corrections (ODOC). But the numbers of prisoners ODOC has farmed out to the county has dropped from an average of 38 to 21 per day, Christine Calbert, jail administrator said.   Calbert said “I talked to the state today. They said they are low on prisoners. It’s not anything we are doing wrong.”   Tabor said Tuesday that ODOC told the county Tuesday they will be pulling five to six inmates from the county jail next week, and at least another two during the following week, causing an even larger deficit.

Calbert said the jail needs about $850,000 a year to operate, an amount which was bolstered by housing ODOC prisoners.   At an average of 38 ODOC prisoners per day, the county was taking in $37,050 per month. With 21 ODOC prisoners now in the jail, the county is collecting $20,475 per month, which will drop even further with the loss of another seven to nine ODOC prisoners … The jail has room for 114 prisoners, and, as of Monday, had 83 prisoners, Calbert said …

Sheriff Ron Lockhart suggested to the members of the Sequoyah County Criminal Justice Authority last month that the county consider asking for a sales tax for the sheriff’s office and jail operations …  Housing federal prisoners would also raise money for the jail, he said. But Calbert said the county jail does not meet federal standards — most particularly a large exercise area — and cannot house federal prisoners.

vericatrajkova County-State Issues, Economic Issues, OK Sequoyah County

Wayne County NC commissioners Tuesday are expected to be asked to find $121,255 in local dollars to continue a state-funded program that this past year saved the county some $1.2 million, but is now facing the state’s budget ax. Report from the Goldsboro News Argus.

The county has learned that the Criminal Justice Partnership Program is among state programs whose funding might be eliminated as Gov. Beverly Perdue looks for ways to fill a $2 billion budget shortfall.  The cut would jeopardize the county Day Reporting Center program that is designed to reduce the cost of operating the jail by placing defendants on programs such as electronic monitoring … The state’s $121,225 is used for contractual services, operating costs and a portion of the director and administrative assistant’s salary. Currently, the county provides $24,301, which covered the remaining part of salary and retiremen…

Center Director Theresa Barratt, in a written appeal to the board, said the program had saved the county just over $1.2 million based on incarceration costs and an additional $27,090 in jail fees.  People in the program are able to remain at work and those without jobs are required to perform volunteer work and they all take educational classes and work toward their GEDs.   Commissioners last month appropriated $16,535 to expand the electronic monitoring program.   At that time, Ms. Barratt told commissioners the units not only help relieve overcrowding at the jail, they will save the county a considerable amount of money — $4 per day per person versus about $45 to have a person sitting in jail.

vericatrajkova Community Corrections, County-State Issues, Economic Issues, Electronic Monitoring, NC Wayne County, North Carolina

To steal a phrase, no jail is an island, entire unto itself.  Every jurisdiction with a jail needs to operate cooperatively with other agencies, other jurisdictions at all levels of government.  Jail protocols manage these transactions, more or less efficiently, and they are the glue that hold the system together.  Watching them evolve over time, and figuring out the larger forces that are driving the change, is fascinating to those with an interest in the small connections.  Take Clearfield County in rural Pennsylvania, and this story reported by The Progress.

The Clearfield County Prison Board is exploring the possibility of contracting with the Jefferson County Jail during times of maximum capacity at the Clearfield County Jail. At yesterday’s meeting, the board received an e-mail from Jefferson County Judge John Henry Foradora who said that there is space available at the jail at a rate of $55 per day. Currently, CCJ has a contract with the Centre County Prison at the same rate. Both facilities are approximately 45 miles from the Clearfield County Jail.   No action was taken on the topic  yesterday,  but  the  board agreed  to  look  into  the possibility.

The board also received a letter from the state Department of Corrections regarding transportation services. Clearfield County has long been using the Department of Corrections service to transport inmates to the state correctional facility in Houtzdale from other state prisons. Now, under a new act, the department would be required to provide the service. The department would also be permitted to charge the county 16 cents per mile for the service. The board agreed that the fee is manageable because it saves the sheriff’s department from having to transport the inmates. The county could also be reimbursed when the service is used to transport inmates for Attorney General cases.

From these small matters, we can see that, when counties are actively competing one with the other for inmates, the entrepreneur/rentor distinction between counties has become a standard feature rather than an exception.   And in the matter of transportation we see further evidence of the modern shift of financial obligation from the higher levels of governments to the lower; the movement of costs from State to county, and from county to city.

vericatrajkova County-State Issues, Economic Issues, PA Clearfield County