Pubdate: Thu, 31 Mar 2005 Source: Lexington Herald-Leader (KY) Copyright: 2005 Lexington Herald-Leader Contact: http://www.kentucky.com/mld/heraldleader/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/240 Author: Lee Mueller BIG COSTS FORCE SOME COUNTIES TO CLOSE SMALL JAILS Larger Lockups Paid To Keep State Inmates JACKSON - Breathitt County has become the 37th Kentucky county to lose its jail since 1983, when the state began enforcing new standards on old jailhouses, some of which were compared to medieval dungeons. That was then. Now officials in counties with small jails say they're closing their doors because they can't afford to keep them open. "Every one of us has got a bigger pipe going out than we've got coming in," Breathitt Judge-Executive Lewis Warrix said Tuesday, referring to costs. The expense of maintaining the 12-bed jail in Jackson -- remodeled and reopened in 1996 at a cost of $1 million -- "had just gone out of sight," he said. The Breathitt County facility is the second small Eastern Kentucky jail to close during the last three months -- and a third could be in jeopardy. Knott County, which spent $1.2 million two years ago to refurbish its 14-bed jail, shut it down in December. In Estill County, where finances forced a 15-bed jail to shut down briefly in 2003, the fiscal court is considering closing it again, Judge-Executive Wallace Taylor said yesterday. Even as the number of inmates in Kentucky jails has increased by 13 percent since last March -- swollen by a flood of drug-related arrests - -- the closing of small facilities comes as no shock to most corrections experts. "Every county needs a jail," said Knott County Sheriff Ray Bolen. "But they're just too costly." A bigger jail might not be better, but it needs to be big enough to house prisoners for the state or other counties to survive, experts say. "Basically, it really takes a facility of 400 to 500 beds for economies of scale to start taking place," said John Rees, commissioner of the state Department of Corrections. "The state and federal mandates for operating a jail are expensive," he said. The state still has 78 full-service jails and 15 so-called "life-safety" jails for misdemeanor offenders. They housed 14,629 inmates on March 4, 2004, and 16,536 on March 4 this year. Most of the remaining small jails are in Western Kentucky in Hancock (10 beds) Livingston (12), Russell (18), and Trigg and Crittenden counties But McLean County recently shut down its small jail and began housing inmates in Ohio County, said David Osborne, who is jailer in Daviess County and a Kentucky Jailers Association board member. "It just gets more expensive every year," Osborne said. Plans for regional jails across the state, jointly funded by several counties, have mostly failed to materialize. Four counties use the Big Sandy Regional Detention Center in Paintsville and three counties so far use the Three Forks Regional Detention Center in Beattyville. Osborne, whose jail had 676 inmates this week in a facility with 590 beds, said only a third of his inmates are from Daviess County. "Where you really make your money is housing state prison inmates," he said. The Daviess County jail is receiving $26 a day for housing 418 state Department of Corrections inmates "and the General Assembly just increased the per diem to $30 a day," he said. The Daviess County jail has a budget of nearly $6 million, but only $1 million comes from local sources, Osborne said. Most of it is generated by housing state inmates. "That's why these small jails are having such a hard time," he said. "They're only big enough to hold their own inmates -- and their county has to pay every bit of that. "It's a bottomless pit, so to speak." Breathitt County Deputy Jailer Steve Turner conceded that the old Jackson County jail is not big enough to pay for itself. At one point, the county paid $151,000 to design a 75-bed jail as part of a new judicial center, he said, but that part of the project was canceled. "A jail is not supposed to be a money-making business," Turner said. "This is going to be a hardship on our inmates' families." While administrators of larger jails wondered last week what effect the new state prison in Elliott County will have on their state inmate count, large detention centers, such as Daviess County's, continued to look for inmates, Osborne said. "We got 26 from Perry County last week," he said. "I'm not sure what the issue was, but I was under the impression they had emptied out all the state prisoners from the Perry County jail." Deputy Perry County Jailer Rickey Neace said the new jail there has 134 beds and nearly 200 inmates, but Department of Corrections spokeswoman Lisa Lamb said the Hazard jail has more serious problems than overcrowding. Lamb said the state recently decided to remove its inmates from the Hazard jail after a two-day inspection. "When the commissioner (Rees) walked in, he described it as total chaos," Lamb said. When Rees told Perry County Jailer Mac Feltner he was going to pull out state inmates, Feltner vigorously told him to go ahead, Lamb said, "and I'm leaving out the expletives." Feltner could not be reached last night, but the Hazard Herald reported yesterday that Perry Fiscal Court was considering shutting down the jail until the situation is resolved. - --- MAP posted-by: Larry Seguin