COUNTY JAILS IN A REAL JAM

Record Number of Prisoners Crowd Jails In Hillsborough County, Leaving
Officials In A Crunch

TAMPA - The numbers at the Hillsborough County jails this week represent a
personal best, but they're not the type jail administrators beam over.

Inmates.

Lots of them.

More then ever before. Monday night, the Hillsborough system of three jails
booked in its 3,774th prisoner. That's the most people behind bars at a
single time.

Sheriff's Capt. Curtis Flowers can't explain the spike.

"The population continues to increase," he said, "and all of the rooms at
the inn are filled. We're perplexed by it."

Flowers said cells that usually hold one inmate now have an extra bunk.
More inmates mean more linens and more meals. It also means more people
visiting, and accommodations have to be made for that.

"We can't just put up a 'no vacancy' sign out front," he said. "We have to
stay open."

Sheriff's Col. David Parrish has been in charge of the jails for the past
21 years. He's also at a loss.

"We can't attribute it to anything," he said of the record number of
inmates. "It's just up everywhere."

The operating capacity of the county jails is 3,036 inmates, he said,
including 200 federal prisoners housed at the Morgan Street Jail. The
county has a contract with the federal government to house that many
federal inmates there. If not for that contract, the Morgan Street lockup
would have been closed, Parrish said, so the beds allocated for federal
prisoners are not putting a crunch on county inmate space.

There's no immediate fix in sight, he said. Construction is approved at the
Falkenburg Road Jail that will increase capacity by about 500 beds this
fall, but that won't be completed in time to relieve the current crunch.
The inmate population tends to decrease near the end of the year, usually
beginning in September, Parrish said. That won't help during the next
couple of months, either.

It could be a long, hot summer for those incarcerated and for those
watching them, Parrish said.

"We have no control over what comes at us," he said. "This is the highest
we have ever had."

In fact, the record has been broken four times within the past week.

Six hundred stackable cots are in use to accommodate the overflow of
inmates, and corrections officers watch as pods designed 10 years ago for
48 prisoners now hold twice that.

"The biggest problem is finding enough people to work overtime, and the
money to pay them," Parrish said. The jails have a $1.7 million contingency
fund that covers overtime. Parrish said that until recently, overtime
spending has been "right on target." But with the spike in inmate
population during the past week, "We are overspending a bit right now." If
the high population continues, overtime funding might encounter a problem
later this summer. The fiscal year ends Sept. 30.

Part of the surge in prisoners might have to do with prison inmates
returning to Hillsborough County for resentencing hearings.

An appellate court ruling two years ago gave imprisoned felons an
opportunity to be resentenced under new guidelines. Many have taken
advantage of that ruling and, to do that, they have to be transported from
their prison cells to the jails in the counties where they were originally
sentenced.

Parrish said that as of Tuesday afternoon, 155 state prison inmates were in
the Hillsborough lockup awaiting court hearings. That's twice as many as
the average, he said.