Pubdate: Thu, 04 Aug 2005
Source: High Point Enterprise (NC)
Copyright: 2005 High Point Enterprise
Contact:  http://www.hpe.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/576

MOVE PRISONERS TO RELIEVE OVERCROWDING

The numbers are scary. After reading David Nivens' reports on an
expert's recommendations for a jail or jails in Guilford County, we
don't know if we're in an oil filter commercial or a James Garner movie.

The oil filter commercial some years back told us "pay me now or pay
me later." Consultants from Kimme & Associates seem to be telling us
to "Support Your Local Sheriff."

And the burden for choosing the best of four options, and what to do
over the next year or two, falls solidly on the backs of current
Guilford County commissioners this autumn. If they have any intention
of properly serving their constituents, commissioners must put their
petty political bickering behind them, discuss the cold, hard facts
and make the correct decision.

First, the numbers:

On average, the county jail in Greensboro, with bed space for about
390, holds more than 500 inmates; the county jail in High Point, with
a capacity of about 270, holds some 350 inmates.

Consultants predict that Guilford County would need more than 1,500
jail beds by 2025 and perhaps as many as 2,100 by 2035.

Cost estimate for a consolidated jail is $100 million.

The options forwarded by the consultants:

1. Build a jail to house 1,620 inmates between Greensboro and High
Point.

2. Retain both jails, expanding and remodeling to accommodate 1,050
beds - more than 550 of them in High Point.

3. Build a 1,354-bed jail in Greensboro and reduce the population at
the High Point jail (to 266).

4. Build a satellite jail to house roughly 1,050 prisoners and retain
the jails in Greensboro and High Point.

That's some game of choice, isn't it?

Meanwhile, the consultants urge the county quickly to start moving
scores of prisoners to "rented" beds in other counties' jails to
relieve overcrowding in Greensboro and High Point. Sheriff BJ Barnes
and other officials have warned commissioners for years that a federal
judge likely will order a new jail here to relieve overcrowding as has
been done in Forsyth, Durham and Mecklenburg counties.

If you think $100 million is a big nut to crack for adequate jail
space in the near term, stop and think how much more it would cost if
commissioners wait another five years to take action, for the
liability that accompanies present jail conditions, and the lawsuit
bills the county would have to pay if there was a fire or some other
catastrophe and it wasn't possible to remove all of the inmates.

Whew!

It's time to bite the bullet and do something such as moving
over-capacity prisoners to other jails. To let unacceptable jail
conditions continue would, in itself, be criminal.
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MAP posted-by: Larry Seguin