Area jail exploring its alternatives to expensive expansion

By Tasha Kates

Published: May 18, 2008

The Albemarle-Charlottesville Regional Jail has 580 places to sleep.

“If we get 581 [people], we don’t have any place to put that one person,” Superintendent Col. Ronald Matthews said.

On average, the jail houses about 540 inmates a day. The number is high enough to have officials worried about how long it will take before the jail will need another expansion, an option that Matthews said is “the most expensive and the most unpopular solution.”

Instead of planning for a new jail, local officials are looking into what can be done to reduce the inmate population. After hearing presentations from groups of University of Virginia engineering students last week, the Thomas Jefferson Area Community Criminal Justice Board has started to think about what can be changed within the local criminal justice system to empty more beds at the jail.

When Matthews arrived in 2004, there were about 430 inmates each day. If the rate of growth continues, he expects there will be 800 inmates by 2010. The jail, which was built in 1974, has undergone two renovations, the most recent of which added 120 beds to the facility. Matthews said the jail’s rated capacity is 329 beds, which is a Department of Corrections measure that determines how many single bunk cells a facility needs.

According to the U.S. Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Statistics, the nation’s inmate population increased from 747,529 in the middle of 2005 to 766,010 in the middle of 2006. Between 2005 and 2006, U.S. jails reported adding 21,862 beds to their facilities, bringing the total rated capacity to 810,863.

The engineering students’ presentation included a simulation that showed how people move through the criminal justice system to reveal bottlenecks. Based on several months of research, the students recommended making changes in the areas of arrests, bond conditions and recidivism.

Getting in the system

At the law enforcement level, the students recommended diverting people with mental illness and substance abuse to treatments facilities. Charlottesville Police Chief Timothy J. Longo said his officers take willing intoxicated people to the Mohr Center as long as they haven’t been charged with other offenses. The facility, however, has only five beds in its public inebriate shelter, and Longo said some people are no longer welcome there because of past behavior.

Longo said he would support a larger substance abuse facility, something that the students suggested during their presentation, although he said he’d need to do more research to know if a new facility would lessen the load on the jail. The police chief, who is also a member of the criminal justice board, said it takes more time to send people to jail for being drunk in public than it does to send them to Mohr.

“If they’re willing to go, we can call for a transport vehicle,” Longo said. “If they’re arrested, it’s more of an investment of time. It can take 20 minutes to an hour and a half.”

Before people appear in court, representatives from the Offender Aid and Restoration/Jefferson Area Community Corrections Program gather information about them through interviews. Pat Smith, the agency’s executive director and a criminal justice board member, said they use a list of questions to help assess if a person is a risk to himself or others or if he will be likely to return to court on his own.

The students recommended reviewing the risk-assessment process, which Smith said happens in the four hours before court starts at 9 a.m.

“I think we do it pretty quickly,” Smith said. “I am open minded, but I don’t know where the logjams are. I don’t think it’s with pretrial, though.”

In the courtroom

The engineering students said they saw opportunities in the court system that could help reduce the jail population, such as allowing defendants to pay their bond with credit cards. General District Judge Robert H. Downer Jr., also a criminal justice board member, said he didn’t think credit was a good option for bond.

“Money has nothing to do with confidence in good behavior,” Downer said. “The only thing money can do is ensure their appearance in court. If it’s on a credit card, we will get the money, but the purpose of bond is not to make money for the commonwealth.”

Bond is determined based on a person’s history, criminal record, ties to the community and the nature of the offense. Downer said before he issues bond in general district court, he wants to be sure that the person will behave if allowed to go free and will return to court when scheduled.

Downer also said the court aims to conclude cases in 30 to 60 days, and almost all of them are out of the general district court in 90 days. However, the judge said that sometimes the process takes longer if a witness is unavailable or if a defense lawyer is using time as a strategy.

“As much as we want to do things quickly, we also want to make sure that they are done correctly,” Downer said. “I don’t take guilty pleas for convenience.”

The students also recommended getting rid of delays before trial and sentencing, suggesting that agencies share information to cut down on the time used to conduct pre-sentence investigations. Smith said her agency already shares what information it has with the probation offices.

Leaving the jail

The Department of Corrections plays a role in jail overcrowding, too. Matthews said inmates who have been sentenced to prison terms longer than a year remain at the jail while the paperwork goes through.

“Once they get their sentencing order, they should be out within 60 days,” Matthews said. “Sometimes it happens, and sometimes it doesn’t.”

Matthews said the problem has gotten better since the 1990s, when it could take a year for some inmates to have a bed at a prison.

The Charlottesville-area jail also has programs for inmates aimed at lowering recidivism rates, such as GED programs and resume-writing and anger-management sessions. Matthews said the programs have helped reduce disciplinary problems, which helps the staff more easily manage the inmates.

The criminal justice board plans to invite the community to a planning session to discuss how to reduce the inmate population. Although some board members have misgivings about some of the students’ suggestions, most are interested to see what can be done to reduce the jail population.

“I’m keeping an open mind to all of the alternatives,” Smith said.

Downer agreed.

“We’re all committed to improving the system where we can,” he said. “It costs a lot of money to incarcerate people. It’s not the best solution, but it’s the only solution for some.”