Jail report finds drug, alcohol abuse high among inmates

About 95 percent of the more than 8,500 inmates booked into the Santa Fe County jail last year reported that they had used or abused drugs or alcohol before their incarceration, a newly released report says.

The county generated the report after an annual inspection of the adult detention center off N.M. 14 south of Santa Fe. The three newly elected members of the five-member Santa Fe County Commission — Anna Hansen, Anna Hamilton and Ed Moreno — attended a Feb. 28 inspection of the jail.

The report provides a window into issues faced by the jail, one of the most expensive services in the county’s budget. The jail is under the leadership of Warden Derek Williams, who was hired in December.

More than a third of inmates in 2016 admitted to having used opioids, the report says. Of those, more than 60 percent said they had used heroin and 10 percent said they had used prescription opioids.

The jail oversaw more than 4,100 people under courtordered electronic monitoring programs in 2016, the report says, including GPS monitoring and drug and alcohol testing.

The previous year’s jail inspection report found that turnover among the jail nursing staff was a “constant problem” and jail managers had to cover vacancies through private staffing agencies. The latest inspection report said the nurse vacancy rate is still high, at 44 percent.

Just over 200 inmates had to be transported to the hospital last year.

The vacancy rate for detention officers was 25 percent, the report says.

The first inmates were housed in the jail in 1998 after its construction by Landmark Industries, the report notes. The county assumed operations of the jail from a private company, Management & Training Corp., in 2005.