Overcrowding Continues To Bite Across The Country
The last day or two have brought another rash of stories about overcrowded county jails. In Spartanburg SC, for example, a planned new $32.4m jail will be over-capacity the day it opens. The proposed expansion
would add just about enough bed space to house the number of inmates held there on a daily basis if it were magically built overnight. But by the time it’s actually complete – construction will take at least two years once planning is finished and designs are approved – the bigger jail will be at, or maybe over, capacity, and county administrators will once again be at square one with the problem of overcrowding.
The Spartanburg County Detention Facility, plus two small annexes, can hold 586 people … Since July, the jail has averaged about 920 inmates a day – peaking at 1,013 one day in September, and the inmate population is projected to grow. Past estimates have been all over the place, but two projections made in the last decade peg the number of inmates here between about 1,300 and 1,600 by 2015.
In Tangipahoa Parish LA, overcrowding is exacerbated by the numbers of Federal and State inmates the county jail is obliged to hold.
Every morning, Warden Randy Pinion and Assistant Warden Stuart Murphy decide who stays and who leaves the Tangipahoa Parish Jail. With an average of 500 bookings a month, these men are responsible for determining how to keep the most dangerous criminals, murderers and rapists, inside the 526-bed facility and deciding to release those less prone to violence. “No matter who you let go, you’re going to make somebody upset,” Murphy said. The problem is that there is little space for local suspects, in part, because of the amount of jail space being used to house state prisoners and federal prisoners, said Sheriff Daniel Edwards. “That agreement helped pay for the jail,” Edwards said. “The problem is it becomes a part of your budget” … At $43 a day for federal prisoners and $23 a day for state, the jail brings in $4.5 million in annual revenues and is the second-largest funding source for the Tangipahoa Sheriff’s Office, Edwards said.
The lack of space causes local police endless trouble.
Ponchatoula Police Chief Bry Layrisson said people accused of petty theft, illegal drug use and fighting — the biggest problems for municipal police forces — are released on bond with a summons to appear in court almost as soon as they arrive because the parish jail beds are reserved for violent criminals. Yet, these same criminals and suspects often do not show up for court and later commit other crimes, he said.“We deal with the revolving door effect,” Layrisson said.
For Prince William County VA the overcrowding problem has to do with the monitoring of illegal aliens and the failure of ICE to claim them in a timely manner.
In recent letters to local officials and the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, jail board Chairman Patrick Hurd said the new policies are straining jail employees and the jail is spending more than $220,000 per month to house prisoners elsewhere. Under a partnership with ICE that began in July, local law enforcement officers get training in processing suspected illegal immigrants. ICE agents are supposed to pick up the suspects within 72 hours. Hurd, however, says agents are taking weeks to pick up the suspects.
Each of these articles has a lot more to tell.
ICE, Immigration Issues / Illegal Aliens, LA Tangipahoa Parish, Overcrowding, SC Spartanburg County, VA Prince William County