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| Hillsborough County Sets A Jail Record |
| By Tampa Bay Tribune |
| Published: 04/18/2003 |
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The Hillsborough County detention system has been setting and breaking population records nearly every month this year. Sunday, the population at the county's three jails, at Morgan Street, Orient and Falkenburg roads - plus the work release center - reached 4,035 inmates, a record. That beats last month's record of 4,000 inmates. And the number keeps rising. 'We're doing what we can to keep up with it,'' said Hillsborough Sheriff's Col. David Parrish, who oversees the county jail system. Increasing inmate populations are a trend not only in Hillsborough County, but also nationwide. The U.S. Department of Justice announced recently the nation's prisons and jails held more than 2 million inmates in June 2002, a record. There were 1,355,748 prisoners in federal and state prisons. Municipal and county jails held an additional 665,475 inmates, said Paige Harrison, a statistician with the Bureau of Justice Statistics. Harrison said the burgeoning inmate populations can be attributed to tougher sentencing guidelines more aggressive policing that is leading to more arrests. 'Mandatory minimums and laws like the `three strikes you're out' law have contributed greatly,'' Harrison said. Last year, 64,441 people were booked into Hillsborough's detention facilities. 'This year we're on track for more than 66,000,'' Parrish said. Parrish said law enforcement officers approach crime fighting differently today than they did 10 or 20 years ago. He said increasing numbers of people moving into Hillsborough County have attributed to jail population growth, too. The average inmate population in the Hillsborough jail system when Parrish took over in 1981 was about 1,200 prisoners daily, less than a third of what it is today. By the middle of 2002, the nation's prisons and jails held 1 in every 142 U.S. residents, Harrison said. Males were incarcerated at a rate of 1,309 inmates per 100,000 U.S. men, and the incarceration of women was 113 per 100,000 female residents. So what does an exploding inmate population in Hillsborough County mean? More inmates, less space to house them and not enough detention deputies to supervise them, Parrish said. The sheriff's office detention unit's overtime budget for 2003 - all $1.7 million of it - already is gone. 'I have to pay detention deputies overtime to supervise the inmates, to get them to court, to medical facilities, to take care of the feeding and cleaning and keep things in order,'' Parrish said. ``With this many inmates, that means overtime.'' He said the department will take money from other areas of the budget to cover overtime expenses. Parrish said at the Morgan Street Jail, which exclusively houses inmates serving federal prison sentences, there were 273 inmates Sunday. The jail is only supposed to hold 204 prisoners, so a closed wing of the 40-year-old, crumbling facility had to be reopened to hold the overflow, Parrish said. At Orient Road, there are beds for 1,714 inmates. There were 2,249 inmates Sunday. That means the ``pods'' the prisoners are housed in, large open rooms with beds for 48 inmates, are overflowing. 'We had to bring in stackable cots for the extra inmates,'' Parrish said. A work release center near Orient Road Jail was handling 171 people Sunday. The Falkenburg Road Jail is midway through a $43 million expansion that will more than double its size to 550,000 square feet, said sheriff's Maj. Robert Lucas, who oversees the jail. That jail has beds for 1,280 inmates but currently houses 1,342. About 512 inmates are in ramshackle trailers on the jail grounds, Parrish said. The Falkenburg Road expansion will have to replace the trailer housing and add 512 beds. That will help alleviate the inmate population crunch, Parrish said, but not for long. He said the Morgan Street Jail probably will have to close soon, since the building requires so much maintenance. 'We're projecting it will cost $1.3 million just to fix the plumbing, electrical, heating, air conditioning and ventilation systems,' he said. Parrish said that 1993 was the only year in the past two decades the sheriff's jail system in Hillsborough County has had enough beds. |
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