(Published Thursday, March 29, 2007 11:05:00 AM CST)
A d v e r t i s e m e n t
By Stacy Vogel Gazette staff
Rock County Sheriff Bob Spoden took office in January optimistic he could ease jail overcrowding and save taxpayers money by sending fewer inmates to other counties.
But a recent surge in population took the sheriff's department by surprise, outpacing strides made by jail diversion efforts and further complicating planning for a jail expansion, officials said.
Last week, the Rock County Board agreed to double the department's 2007 budget for housing out-of-county inmates, from $530,000 to $1.1 million.
"We're going up at a significantly higher rate" than expected, said Tom Gehl, jail commander.
Increasing inmate populations are nothing new in Rock County. The average daily inmate total went up 32 percent between 2002 and 2006.
But in November, inmate totals started to surge beyond the steady growth rate. Over the past four months, the average daily inmate population has risen 12 percent over the same time last year, from 538 to 603.
The Rock County Criminal Justice Coordinating Council, with representatives from law enforcement, courts and county government, has examined reasons for the surge but hasn't yet come up with solid answers, said Josh Smith, assistant to the county administrator.
"We've gotten a lot of cooperation getting the data, now it's just a question of figuring out what it means," Smith said.
The council has discovered several factors that could contribute to the increase, including more female inmates, more probation and parole revocations and changes in state laws, he said.
But members still have to determine how much of an effect each factor has and what the county can do about it.
"It's just a matter of trying to get a handle on the trends," Smith said.
The year has produced some good news, Gehl said. An average of 38 inmates per day were in their homes on electronic monitoring in January and February, up from an average of 13 per day last year, he said.
Another 50 to 80 people who otherwise would have been inmates were sentenced by the court but waiting to begin their own electronic monitoring in February.
Still, the rising population emphasizes the urgent need for an expanded jail, Gehl said.
Trouble is, it also makes planning the expansion more complicated.
A recent presentation by county-hired consultants offered eight options for jail redesign, ranging in capacity from 896 to 1,344 beds.
Sheriff's department and county government officials must now determine where the jail population is headed, Gehl said.
"If we can figure out why our population increase is so high, it can help us to then better plan our facility," he said.
The surge is also making the department take a good look at recently or soon-to-be enacted jail diversion programs, such as electronic monitoring, drug courts and Community RECAP.
"We're looking at what we can essentially do with diversion programs, how far we can take them and what their capacity's going to be," Gehl said.
Jail diversion efforts
Facing increasing inmate populations and jail overcrowding, the Rock County Criminal Justice Coordinating Council and the sheriff's department have worked over the past year to find alternatives to incarceration.
The first idea to go into effect was an expanded electronic monitoring program. The sheriff's department planned to release up to 80 inmates a day on monitoring bracelets in 2007, up from an average of 13 in 2006. The expanded program started in January.
Earlier this year, the department began construction to turn a unit once housing those inmates into medium-security housing. The remodeled unit would allow the county to bring back inmates currently housed in other counties at a cost of $53 per inmate per day, officials said.
The department originally planned to house 50 inmates a day out-of-county through June 1, dropping to 15 a day once the remodeling was done. It budgeted $530,000 for out-of-county inmates for the year.
But the recent surge in inmates has caused the sheriff's department to reexamine its math. Last week, the county agreed to allocate an additional $600,000-more than doubling the out-of-county housing budget-to accommodate the increasing population.
Sheriff's department officials now project housing 110 inmates out-of-county through May 15, dropping to 33 a day after that.
