PANEL TO PICK CONSULTANT FOR JAIL STUDY

Assessment To Cost County $24,950

This afternoon will be the easy part, as Charleston County Council
discusses spending $24,950 to study the county's jail overcrowding problem.

The far more difficult part will come once the study is done and council
members discuss how to expand the jail, a project that could cost $50
million to build and run.

That's partly why the county is turning to consultant Carter Goble Lee to
figure out what alternatives might ease overcrowding and how much they
would cost.

"We know we've got to do something about the jail, but we need some
professional guidance along those lines," Council Chairman Barrett
Lawrimore said Wednesday. "We don't want to throw away money. We want to be
as efficient as we can."

While many might think of the county jail as a single place with barred
windows, it's really more of a conglomeration of separate facilities
designed to house several different groups, including men, women,
nonviolent offenders and juveniles.

And most of them are jammed full.

On Wednesday, the main county jail on Leeds Avenue in North Charleston,
which has a capacity of 661 inmates, housed 1,094, said Chief Deputy Keith
Novak, who oversees the system. The population has reached 1,200 in recent
months.

The county's work camp had 117 inmates, 21 more than its rated capacity.
And its juvenile facility housed 35, twice as many as the state says it should.

The county has estimated a new jail would cost $38 million to build and
then an additional $13.8 million a year to run, but those figures are
preliminary.

County Council's Finance Committee is scheduled to meet at 3:30 this
afternoon and will be asked to award the consultant contract to Carter
Goble Lee, which has assisted the county since 1988. The same consulting
firm helped lay the groundwork for the first phase of the Leeds Avenue jail.

"We think everybody is on board that we need to build Phase Two. We're
getting more and more signals from council and the community," Novak said.
"We need something big. How big? I don't know. That's what we need Carter
Goble to tell us."

The new study will look at the growth patterns for different kinds of crime
and different sexes and ages of criminals. It also will look at the number
of beds needed in a jail and the alternatives to jail those charged with
lesser crimes, and it will look at the cost implications and how long it
will take to build.

Novak said even if work started now on a jail expansion, it might not be
ready until 2008.

The study also will look at the jail's other space crunches. For example,
there is a four-month wait for inmates to get drug and alcohol treatment
because the jail lacks space to house the program. Also, its kitchen,
records and medical areas are too small, he said.

One thing that has changed since the jail was built more than a decade ago
is the rising number of inmates with mental health problems.

"Jails throughout the country are becoming dumping grounds for your mental
health community," Novak said. "On any given day, we may have 200 mental
health cases here."

If approved, the study is expected to be completed this spring. Then County
Council will decide what to do next.

And that is expected to trigger a lot more discussion because with the
demise of the half-cent sales tax, the prospect of having to make property
tax refunds because of a reassessment lawsuit, and a new $3 million a year
commitment to the new Cooper River bridge, County Council has virtually no
way left to raise money other than raising taxes.

"I think the difficult part will be the same issue we've always had, and
that is money," Councilman Curtis Bostic said. "We're already so strapped,
and monies for capital projects can be one of the first things counties avoid."