April 6, 2000

Sheriffs battle jail overcrowding,
struggle to find solutions for counties

Kate Hettinger
digital iowa staff reporter
Drake University

DES MOINES, Iowa-- Getting tough on crime means more arrests and, consequently, more headaches for those in in county corrections.

Though only 25 percent of Iowa's county jails are considered overcrowded, former jail inspector Rod Kampman said the problem has potential to grow.

"We're fixing it temporarily," Kampman said. "I think it's going to continue to be a problem as the crime rates go up."

Kampman said Iowa is not too different from other states across the nation. In general, crime rates are going up, and jail space is becoming more and more restricted.

The problem is not new. The state attorney general established a task force in 1996 to look specifically at corrections issues, including the state of the county jails.

"The task force took note of the need to address concerns with county jails," the report said. "Many urban jails are too small. Many rural jails, too old. Almost all jails could benefit from greater use of technology and more multi-county planning."

Just two years ago, two-thirds of the county jails were considered severely overcrowded, Kampman said. Central and southeast Iowa seem most affected by overcrowding, according to Kampman. Scott County, for example, has beds for 214 inmates, but holds an average of 236. Wapello County has room for 47 but squeezes in an average 55 inmates.

Kampman blamed most of the overcrowding on increasing crime rates, specifically in arrests for drunken driving, domestic abuse and drugs.

Dubuque County Chief Deputy Ken Runde said sentence requirements have also affected the number of inmates held at the Dubuque County jail, which has a capacity of 46 but averages 60 inmates.

Sheriffs try to utilize as much available space as they can by holding two inmates instead of one in a cell or housing less violent offenders in trailer annexes.

In Lee County, for example, the U.S. Department of Corrections allows the county to use 24 trailer beds, said Sheriff Dave Ireland. These beds are only temporary and the state can relinquish their use at any time.

"They're secure although we restrict as best we can to medium security," Ireland said.

In Johnson County, extra inmates sleep on mattresses placed in the common areas of the jail. "It's still a secure area. They just don't actually have cells," Sheriff Robert Carpenter said.

County officials attempt to relieve jail overcrowding by adding as many beds as they can, often called double-bunking. Johnson County changed each of the original 45 jail cells from single capacity to double capacity. Two more cells were also added by converting holding cells into regular jail cells, Carpenter said.

Not every county is able to do this, though, Kampman said. "It's a case-by-case thing. It depends on the design and visibility available," he said.

Cost and Security

Overcrowding, in many cases, affects multiple counties. A county often will send inmates to surrounding areas for holding, costing the county extra in transportation and housing. For example, in Polk County, 120 inmates are housed in facilities other than the county's two jails that have room for 514 inmates.

Assistant Chief William Powell said it can cost anywhere from $50 to $80 a day to rent bed space from other counties. The cost increases when you figure in transportation, often paid as overtime. In Polk County's situation, 73 inmates are in Missouri.

Carpenter said though it operates with an average seven to eight inmates over its limit of 92, Johnson County has not had to farm inmates to other jails. If the county did, Carpenter estimates it would cost nearly $700,000 in bed rentals. With transportation costs, Carpenter said the county could expect to spend $1 million each year to house inmates elsewhere.

But this is only an estimate. In reality, Carpenter hopes the state will not order him to send the extra inmates outside the county anytime soon. "I have no idea where we'd go if we'd have to do that," he said.

Cost is not the only issue. Whenever overcrowding becomes a problem, jail staff must be aware of greater security risks and infrastructure inadequacy. "When the population goes up, it affects a lot of things," Kampman said. "We run into plumbing problems. We lose our ability to classify inmates properly."

Kampman said in most jails, the mechanical support systems are built for a specific capacity. Doubling the number of inmates, for example, means the heating and cooling systems are forced to work twice as hard to control air temperature.

It also becomes more difficult to place inmates with others who are at the same security level. Jail staff is forced to be more aware of security risks. Kampman said in overcrowded jails there are also more incidences of aggression between inmates and staff.

"It's equally dangerous for inmates," Carpenter said. "Tempers seem to flare a little more when you're crowded."

Powell agreed. "Sometimes it takes more staff to manage inmates because they're agitated in close quarters," he said.

The jail inspector, a position in the Department of Corrections, annually inspects each of the county jails, Kampman said. Although jail populations tend to change daily, Kampman said overcrowding is determined by averaging the daily numbers and looking for trends.

Opting to Build

When a county is determined to be overcrowded, the jail inspector works with the sheriff's department to determine what the best options for that county would be. Kampman said when extra space within the jail cannot be converted to cell space, the county has to find another option, which can include transporting inmates to other jails or proposing the building of a new jail.

Counties that decide a new jail is the most feasible option have some work set out for them. It may be easy to convince the sheriff's department and board of supervisors that a new jail is needed, but it is more difficult to convey this to the tax-paying public.

"Primarily it just goes back to folks have a hard time justifying taxes particularly for inmates," said Lee County Sheriff Dave Ireland. "They want to get tough on crime," but they don't want to spend their own money to do it, he said.

Lee County tried to pass a $6.3 million bond issue in March 1999 that would pay for a jail expansion. While 57 percent voted favorably, a 60 percent margin was needed to pass the issue. Ireland said they rejected the bond issue with 109 votes.

The expansion would have provided enough room for 125 inmates. "We thought we had a pretty good handle, but apparently we were not quite successful," Ireland said.

Ireland said another bond issue will probably be proposed at some point, though he cannot predict if it would pass either. "My crystal ball is a little cloudy," he said.

Powell thinks Polk County will have to consider building another jail as well. "In my opinion, we need to build another facility," he said. "If [the public] approved it today, it would still take about three years to build."

Buena Vista County was also unsuccessful in passing a $5.7 million bond issue in January, and Sheriff Chuck Eddy said there are no plans to propose another one. Eddy said the jail holds inmates for the Immigration and Naturalization Service, a focus of controversy in the past few months. With this loss of space, the county transports its female and juvenile offenders to Cherokee County or other bordering counties. It costs the county an estimated $60,000 a month, Eddy said.

There is a certain sense of uncertainty in predicting the jail population, Eddy said, which makes it difficult to ascertain how bad the overcrowding problem is going to be. "You never know from day to day, minute to minute how it's going to be," Eddy said. "I don't see it going down tremendously. We're trying to maintain."

Eddy's concerns reflect the concerns of many county sheriff's departments. "There's no way we can keep going as we are because we don't have the space," said Dubuque Chief Deputy Ken Runde.

Runde said Dubuque County is preparing a referendum asking county residents for approximately $3 million to build a new jail. The department has $3.5 million in reserve and the city of Dubuque has offered to pay $1.2 million for a jail, which would be designed to expand with a growing inmate population.

Johnson County is also recommending to the board of supervisors that a new facility be built to offset crime projections. "We found in Johnson County, though the national average has gone down, that's not necessarily true for us," Carpenter said. "We see nothing there that indicates that our population is going to decrease in the next few years."

Building a new jail will be less costly in the long run, Carpenter said. "The fact is the county, I don't think, wants to help build someone else's jail," Carpenter said. "We can do it a lot cheaper than if we house them in other places."

Not every county has been unsuccessful in rallying public support for a new facility. Pottawattamie County just finished building a jail to hold 288 inmates, far more than the 63 it held in the old jail. Jail administrator Stu DeLaCastro said they were at capacity in their old jail, which consisted of 43 traditional cells and 20 cells converted from gymnasium space. Nearly 40 inmates were also sent to other counties, costing the county between $55 and $150 per day per inmate, DeLaCastro said.

This new jail is already close to capacity. Seventy-five beds are reserved for the U.S. Marshals as part of an agreement that provided the county $2 million to go toward building the jail. DeLaCastro said 210 beds are currently used, leaving about three beds open. DeLaCastro said this jail can grow with the population, though. "The site was selected to add a 100-bed wing without too much problem," he said.

When the jail was full, DeLaCastro said the justice community took that into consideration when imposing sentences. "Now that there's room, judges are using the facility more," he said.

The Iowa Legislature has also contributed to a rise in the county's jail population by changing laws. "A lot of people that used to be able to bond out are staying with us a little longer," DeLaCastro said.

Marshall County is about to finish building its own jail as well. Last spring, the county passed a $3.5 million bond issue to build a jail with 130 beds, said chief jailer Larry Lowe. The total cost of the project is $5.7 million.

The current jail has space for 23 inmates. The daily average is 40 to 45 inmates, which means nearly 20 inmates are held in five other counties, Lowe said. "It's a pain. It's a transportation nightmare," Lowe said.

The Marshall County public was very involved in deciding to build a new jail, Lowe said. Although the sheriff's department knew this was necessary, a community committee set the ball rolling.

At one point, the public learned that the jail was going to be restricted to nine prisoners, which would mean nearly 35 prisoners would be transported and held in different counties. "The public was seeing how much we'd spend in outside areas," Lowe said.

The public found out for themselves the extent of the problems and passed a bond issue to pay to fix the situation. The Marshall County plan includes contracting with other counties for bed space that will cost $70 a day per inmate, Lowe said. The goal, he said, is to operate at 80 percent capacity between the beds Marshall County uses and those that are contracted. "I don't think there's going to be any problem keeping our beds full," Lowe said.

The money generated from these contracts will help offset the cost of building. Lowe said the jail was sized based on 10-year population projections. "Our county had to foresight to see you might as well build big while you're building," he said.