With jail overcrowding a problem that is only expected to get worse as the state moves lower-risk inmates from state prisons to the counties where they committed their crimes, San Benito County Sheriff Darren Thompson is hopeful a jail expansion grant can stem that coming tide.
The county in 2008 received approval for jail expansion grant funding from the state, but could not come up with the $5 million in matching funds required to accept the $15 million award.
“Unfortunately, that fantastic opportunity couldn’t have come at a worse time, in that shortly after the award the economy continued on its decline. And our county at that time didn’t feel we should invest the $5 million to $7 million in a jail expansion program,” Thompson said. “We weren’t the only county that couldn’t take advantage of their award.”
That money, however, is still earmarked and the state “is sympathetic to the situation,” Thompson said, so San Benito is one of 25 counties invited to submit applications for a piece of nearly $603 million in funding for the construction or expansion of county jails.
The county is one of 10 in the small county category – fewer than 200,000 residents. Other counties are Kings, Shasta, Sutter, Madera, Imperial, Napa, Amador, Siskiyou, and Tuolumne.
Monterey County is one of the medium-sized counties invited to apply for funding, and Santa Clara County is one of the large counties.
Factors used to select the 25 eligible counties included those that committed the largest percentage of inmates to state custody in 2010 and those that chose to relinquish their first round of funding – as San Benito did – and reapply in Phase II, which has a lower matching fund requirement.
At this time last year, California’s 33 state prisons housed 168,000 prisoners despite being designed to house 92,000 inmates, Thompson said.
“So the federal government has ordered the state to reduce their inmate population,” he said. “The other option is that the state builds more penitentiaries, but building prisons takes time and is very expensive. A cheaper solution is to return what they categorize as low-risk inmates to the counties where their committed their offenses for supervision.”
While this does not mean state prisoners will be sent to county jails, Thompson noted, they will be supervised by county probation officers.
“I am an optimist and a lover of humanity,” he said, “but my realistic side tells me that if I get 100 early-release inmates, some of them will not go along with their probation terms and land in the county jail. Currently, I don’t have room for them.”
Last year the San Benito County Jail on Flynn Road booked 2,573 people. It is rated for a daily maximum population of 142, but often housed more than 130 and periodically exceeded the 142 capacity.
“And that’s without the impact that we’re expecting with the early release of certain inmates,” Thompson said.
The funding to expand jail bed space will be provided through lease revenue bonds approved by Assembly Bill 900, also known as the Public Safety and Offender Rehabilitation Services Act of 2007. The Corrections Standards Authority has already awarded $617 million to 11 counties during the first phase of funding, which added more than 5,000 county jail beds statewide.
AB 900 provides $7.7 billion to add up to 53,000 prison and jail beds and reduce prison overcrowding. Each county that receives funding is required to provide a percentage of matching funds to the project.
Recognizing that counties might have a tough time coming up with a 25 percent match during this round of grant funding, the state will require a lower match that could mean San Benito County would have to front between $1 million and $2 million if it is selected for a $15 million jail expansion grant.
“We won’t necessarily be able to build as large of an expansion as we originally hoped,” Thompson said. “We will work with architects to see if there’s a way we can up our numbers.”
The jail would get approximately 60 more beds if it receives the grant funding.
“There are a lot of folks out there that would see a jail expansion as a waste of public funds and often make suggestions like creating a tent city like they have in Maricopa County, Arizona,” Thompson said. “Those conditions don’t meet our requirements in California. We can’t have camping inmates.”
Instead, Thompson said San Benito County hopes to expand work-alternative programs, in which some newly-convicted local inmates can “work off their sentences instead of burning them off in jail.” Some inmates released from state prisons for supervision by local probation officers could be electronically monitored as well.
“We’re hoping that keeps our numbers down so there’s always room in the inn,” he said.
Final awards for the jail expansion grants will be announced by March 2012, so Thompson said it will be up to the San Benito County Board of Supervisors to commit to the matching funding before then.
“They’ll consider whether or not we’ll be able to fund our share of it, which will be equivalent to pulling money out of a hat in the current climate,” he said. “Great opportunities can sometimes come at horrible times. I’d much rather be the sheriff stating we need to take advantage of this opportunity than the sheriff years from now asking them to take $20 million out of the local budget for this. I acknowledge it’s a terrible time to ask for money, but we know for sure we’re going to have 100 early-release prisoners over the next 12 months and it’s easy to forecast that our overcrowding problem is going to get worse.”
