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JAIL OVERCROWDING
Counties strain to make room for criminals
Should you care? Yes, says Clark County sheriff. Nonviolent offenders, including burglars, aren't being held, he says.
Sunday, May 27, 2007
By the end of summer, Montgomery County will be spending money to house prisoners in other counties' jails, even though Montgomery County spent $17 million to expand its own jail just three years ago.
Greene County officials opened a new minimum-to medium-security jail in Xenia in 2000 that more than doubled the county's capacity to house prisoners. But today, the county in a typical month releases 30 to 40 prisoners early to keep the lockups from overflowing.
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And in Clark County, prisoners are housed in modular units, basically modified cargo containers, in what used to be a parking garage under the sheriff's office.
Local law enforcement officials say they find it harder every year to keep up with the demand for jail space as the convictions increase for relatively minor crimes that send people to jails rather than to state prisons.
Another factor is the enforcement of new mandatory sentencing laws that mean some offenders must be held longer than they might have been held in the past.
"I don't think anybody wants to build a jail, because as soon as we build it, it will fill up," said Montgomery County Commissioner Debbie Lieberman.
A few counties, including Miami, aren't having current crowding problems. Capt. Dave Duchak of the Miami County Sheriff's Office said the county built a new jail in 1999, more than tripling the county's inmate capacity. Miami County now takes in overflow prisoners from other counties for a fee.
Clark County Sheriff Gene Kelly said that even if counties with overcrowding problems could afford to build more jails they couldn't afford to run them. He said the cost of staff salaries, medical care for prisoners and other costs increase in lockstep with inmate populations.
Kelly said jail overcrowding is having a negative effect on the quality of life of average citizens, though he thinks most people don't realize that.
"DUIs, thefts, burglaries, anything nonviolent — all kinds of offenses, we don't put people in jail anymore," Kelly said. "And the people who are committing those offenses know it. They're not afraid of going to jail because they know they won't."
Kelly said the fact that burglars, for instance, aren't spending time in jail, means there are more burglars running around and more burglaries committed.
"If you look around, a lot of places are building juvenile detention facilities now," Kelly said. "If there are more juvenile offenders that have to be dealt with now, you know that means they'll be turning up in adult jails in a few years."
