Officials looking at portable housing for added jail space
SPRINGFIELD, Mo. — Overcrowded jails in Benton and Washington counties have officials looking for quick fixes while they keep working on long-term solutions.
Washington County Sheriff Tim Helder and Benton County Sheriff Shawn Holloway took their top jail administrators last week to visit the Green County Jail in Springfield, Mo., to see how portable space in semitrailers is being used as interim housing while the county plans and builds a bigger jail.
Helder presented an expansion plan of the Washington County Detention Center to the Quorum Court in 2018. The justices of the peace asked him to look at alternatives to incarceration before they ask voters to approve a sales tax increase for the $38 million needed to add 600 beds to the 700bed jail.
Justices of the peace recently agreed to hire an ombudsman to recommend ways some prisoners might be released. A study of the criminal justice system has been discussed, but not agreed to yet.
“As I’ve said, I’m open to anything,” Helder said. “We still think we presented the best option last year but I’m going to do my due diligence and provide the JPs with as much information as I can.”
Holloway said his jail is also regularly above its capacity and the Sheriff’s Office has had to limit the number of misdemeanor offenders admitted to the jail. The Benton County Jail has a capacity of about 669 prisoners and has seen the number being held grow to between 680 and 700 recently. The county is sending 15 to 20 prisoners to Carroll County most days and limiting the number of misdemeanor offenders to 40 or 50.
“This is our first trip looking at what’s available,” Holloway said Thursday.
Maj. Royce Denny with the Greene County Sheriff’s Office said his jail has a capacity of 601 prisoners but the county has been exceeding that number for several years.
“On Monday we hit an alltime high of 946 inmates,” Denny said Wednesday.
Voters in Greene County approved a half-percent sales tax increase in 2017 as part of a plan to expand the jail and other services. The proposed expansion will give the county about 1,200 beds, but construction will take several years. The county needed more prisoner housing in the meantime.
Denny said Greene County, with a population of about 289,000 in 2017, had contracts with 11 Missouri counties to accept the overflow of prisoners. The number of prisoners sent to other counties ranged from 160 to 200, Denny said. Those contracts cost about $2.2 million in 2017, according to the county.
To reduce that cost, the county decided to lease temporary housing units manufactured by a nearby company, All Detainment Solutions in Seymour, Mo. The company has manufactured housing and office space for the military and for workers in disaster relief situations and saw an opportunity to expand by offering mobile housing units to law enforcement.
Denny said the Greene County Jail is leasing the units, built on 53-foot-long semitrailers. The trailers give the jail about 2,600 square feet that house 108 prisoners.
The trailers are configured for different uses, with one providing shower and toilet facilities, three used for sleeping areas and two used for common areas. A space between the shower unit and the sleeping areas, surrounded by metal screening, provides an exercise and outdoor recreation area.
The county has leased the housing for two years at an annual cost of about $873,000, with options for three more years at an annual cost of about $833,000 and one more year at a cost of $794,000.
The company is working on temporary housing for the Canyon County Jail in Caldwell, Idaho. Joe Decker, public information officer for Canyon County, said the jail has been a source of problems for many years. Canyon County has a population of about 230,000.
Decker said proposals to expand the jail using bond issues were rejected by voters in 2006, 2009, 2010 and again in 2019. He said the county was sued by the American Civil Liberties Union because of crowding, water temperature and other complaints and entered into a consent decree that ended in 2015. He said the county has continued to abide by the terms of the consent decree, but those conditions included capping the jail population at 477, down from 650 to 700 prisoners held before the consent decree.
Decker said the 2019 expansion plan was for a $187 million bond issue that included a new 1,055-bed jail. Decker said Canyon County is spending about $10.5 million in a lease-purchase for about 28 of the temporary units to house 122 prisoners. He said the county is now spending about $1 million annually to transport and house prisoners in other jails, making the leased housing space an attractive measure while county officials keep working on a permanent solution.
“We’re bursting at the seams here,” Decker said.
Beth Coger of Fayetteville has lobbied the Washington County Quorum Court to work on alternatives to incarceration, including hiring the ombudsman and doing the study of the criminal justice system.
Coger said she and others are working to generate community support for programs to provide assistance with bail for those who can’t afford it. She also advocated helping those who have been released in making their court appearances so they can avoid being re-arrested for failure to appear. Coger said the county needs to give these alternatives time to work.
“I know that’s going to make a difference,” Coger said.
Helder said he was struck by the similarities in Green County and Canyon County. Both areas are seeing population growth similar to Northwest Arkansas and struggling with the increase in crime that comes with a growing population. Washington County has a population of about 231,000 and Benton County has a population of about 266,000.
Helder said Washington County’s need for relief is immediate. If the county is unable to find alternatives to incarceration the expansion plan, assuming voters approved the sales tax, will still take up to three years to complete so the county needs to look at interim solutions.
“This all sounds very familiar,” Helder said.