COUNTY PRISON BEYOND CAPACITY

The men's unit at the county jail is full, prompting prison officials to
borrow cots from the National Guard until new bunks arrive.

New beds are on the way, but until they arrive, some male Bucks County
prison inmates will sleep on Army cots and mattresses.

For the first time in at least a decade, the men's unit at the prison has
swelled past capacity. All 554 beds are full, prompting prison officials to
bring in mattresses and borrow cots from the National Guard.

Warden J. Allen Nesbitt said five additional bunks were moved into the unit
last week, and 76 more are on order. The new beds will cost the jail
approximately $12,000, which will come out of the annual budget, Nesbitt said.

The new metal bunks will be welded to existing beds to form bunk beds.

Nesbitt said the overcrowding is not the result of an influx of new
prisoners but rather the fact that inmates are serving longer sentences.
"We're not seeing a large increase in new commitments, but people are
staying longer," he said.

Earlier this month, Nesbitt called for a moratorium on state-sentenced
inmates being placed in the county jail to serve their terms. Although
county sentences are not supposed to last more than one day short of two
years, judges are allowed to sentence defendants to the county jail for up
to one day less than five years.

Nesbitt said new laws that allow some juvenile and mentally ill suspects to
be held at the prison might also contribute to the overcrowding. He said he
and his staff are studying the issue.

Nesbitt said he spent part of last week at the American Correctional
Association convention in Philadelphia, a nationwide gathering of prison
professionals. He and the prison's purchasing agent looked at
state-of-the-art surveillance equipment, including new closed-circuit cameras.

The prison's surveillance system came under fire last month when a grand
jury investigating the drug overdose death of an inmate found that video
cameras used by guards during visiting hours were not recording the entire
two-hour session.

Inmate Michael Fadako, 23, of Philadelphia, died after ingesting a condom
filled with the drug Xanax that his girlfriend smuggled in during a visit.
Eight people, including three inmates, were arrested on drug and contraband
trafficking charges following the grand jury's probe.

County officials will discuss the overcrowding issue and buying new
equipment at the next prison advisory board meeting on Sept. 13.