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| County budget doesn’t fund jail expansion |
| By hometownannapolis.com |
| Published: 05/11/2009 |
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Despite record overcrowding last summer, no plans are in the works By SCOTT DAUGHERTY, hometownannapolis.com County Executive John R. Leopold did not put aside money in his budget to expand county jails, even though he urgently asked the County Council nine months ago to back immediate construction because of a growing inmate population. Advertisement Click Here County officials said they did not think the council would agree this year to expand its two jails — even though both are regularly at or over their official 1,175 capacity — so they decided to focus on other priorities. “It’s affordability... too many capital needs and too little resources,” said Superintendent Robin Harting, echoing similar comments by county Budget Officer John Hammond. The county’s $217 million capital spending plan contains no money for the jail expansion in the next fiscal year and does not promise any money for the next five. County officials included only $250,000 in the capital budget for the jails, and that is only for the retrofitting of showers at the Ordnance Road Correctional Center in Glen Burnie. Harting stressed the county could reintroduce the $70.9 million expansion project — 45 percent of which would have been paid for by the state — in the next few years if the county’s economic landscape improves. If the county does not commit to the project before 2015, however, the two jails will not add any new beds until at least 2019 — since the first stage of the project takes three years to implement. By then, private consultants expect the jails to be more than 700 inmates over capacity. Leopold on Friday presented his construction spending plan. It is now in the hands of the County Council, which has until the end of the month to decide which projects get funding. The budget process is normally handled in May, but county administrators took the unusual step last July to ask the County Council to commit to expanding the Jennifer Road Detention Center in Parole and the Ordnance Road facility outside of that cycle. Harting aggressively lobbied the council to approve $2 million for the project. She told the council at that time the jails were dangerous and crowded, noting the average daily population of the two jails in 2007 was just under capacity at 1,153. Consultants, she added, projected the county will need 1,634 beds by 2012 and 1,877 beds by 2017. The crowded environment also was letting gang violence flourish at the jails. And without more cells, she said, she could not guarantee the safety of some inmates. “Crowded facilities are dangerous facilities,” she said, noting that 141 inmates were assaulted in the fiscal year ending June 30, 2008 — 15 percent more than the previous fiscal year. Twenty-one of those assaults resulted in hospitalization and 33 resulted in a trip to the jail’s medical unit. “We’re not in Kansas anymore,” she said. County council members, however, were reluctant last summer to commit to the jail expansion. They agreed the county needed more beds in the jails, but several balked at the price tag — about $90,000 per bed. They worried that if they committed to that project last July they would not be able to support other, more worthy projects this month.Read more. If link has expired, check the website of the article's original news source. |
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