EVER-RISING JAIL POPULATION BEYOND CONTROL

Officials Warned Of An Overcrowding Crisis For Years

When construction on the Alachua County Jail was completed in 1994, only
about half the beds in the 920-bed facility were filled on an average day.

These days, the jail is almost always filled to capacity - with county
officials occasionally shipping inmates to other counties to alleviate
overcrowding. For years, local officials have been warning of an impending
jail population crisis - and warning that there's no simple solution to the
problem.

"There's no magic bullet," said Circuit Court Judge Stan Morris. "There are
a lot of factors at work here that are beyond any one organization's control."

The jail's overcrowding problems have gained renewed public attention this
week, after a 19-year-old University of Florida student serving a weekend
sentence on a marijuana-related charge was allegedly raped by a fellow
inmate awaiting trial for sexual battery. Jail officials said the two were
placed in the same cell because the jail was nearly full. Critics -
including County Manager Randy Reid - said the real problem may have been a
flawed system classifying inmates as they enter the jail.

But no one disputes that the jail, built in the early 1990s off NE 39th
Avenue, is usually jam-packed with inmates. In fact, county and court
officials have been warning about a looming overcrowding crisis for years.

When the last wing of the jail was completed in 1994, jail officials say,
the average daily inmate population was about 450. Since then, populations
have been steadily edging upward.

Steadily, that is, as jail populations go. Because county jails are the
first stop for newly arrested suspects - and holding tanks for people
awaiting trial - jail populations vary wildly from day to day.

A particularly hot and muggy day can bring a spike in the inmate
population, as can a drug sting or a series of parties on a UF football
weekend.

Most inmates, brought in on misdemeanor charges, are gone as soon as they
can sober up or post bail. Others might stay for a year or more awaiting trial.

County officials sometimes compare the jail to a busy hotel, with guests
always leaving and arriving.

But a 920-bed hotel could easily host 920 people, each in his own private
room. Things are more complicated at the jail, where inmates have to be
separated by gender, age and the nature of their offense.

There are one-man cells for dangerous inmates under constant supervision.
There are wings devoted entirely to female inmates. There are infirmary
cells for sick inmates and even cells used only by juveniles charged as
adults - kids who can't mingle with adult inmates and can't be sent to a
juvenile center.

Jail officials never know who police are going to bring to them. That's why
jail officials across the country try to keep at least 15 percent of their
beds open to make sure they have the right accommodations available for any
prisoner. Any jail at more than 85 percent occupancy is considered crowded
according to national standards.

In Alachua County, that translates to 782 inmates in custody at any given
time. But the jail passed that mark years ago. As early as 1998, the
Sheriff's Office reported populations of about 820 on an average day. On an
average day in April 2003, there were 899 people in the jail. And
occasional spikes in the population have pushed that number above 920,
forcing jail officials to ship inmates to neighboring counties.

Jail officials say overcrowding increases the risk of fights and other
misbehavior among inmates. Jail population is one of the most important
factors in keeping inmates safe - and the only one jail officials can't
control.

"We don't decide who goes to jail, we just take care of the people they
send us," said Maj. Robert Chapman, director of the jail.

Chapman said the rise in Alachua County's population - the youngest
population of any county in Florida, due to Gainesville's large number of
college students - has driven most of the growth in the jail population in
the past decade. But he says that 70 to 75 percent of inmates on an average
day aren't serving sentences - they're awaiting trial.

State Attorney Bill Cervone said that percentage could be reduced if local
courts could reduce their backlog. And the county's backlog could be
reduced, he said, if judges were a little less eager to grant continuances
to defense lawyers who repeatedly ask for more time to present their case.

"No one wants a case overturned on appeal, so they give the defense too
much," he said.

But Morris, chief judge at the Alachua County Courthouse, says prosecutors
are just as guilty when it comes to extending a case's time in court.

"There's plenty of blame to go around here," he said.

As chief judge, Morris heads a committee of local government and court
officials that meets several times a year to gauge the jail's status.
Morris says almost every government body plays some role in determining the
jail population - even governments that never get the blame for it.

A city crackdown on prostitutes or drug dealers can fill a jail quickly, he
said. Minimum-sentencing laws passed by the state, he said, have encouraged
inmates to opt for full trials instead of accepting plea bargains. And a
trend toward tougher penalties for a wide range of crimes has people
serving longer sentences, even in county jails.

Morris says Alachua County's courts have found ways to trim inmates' jail
stays - solutions ranging from alternative sentencing programs to quicker
transfers of convicted inmates to state prison. But gains made through
those programs can easily be offset by decisions made by other agencies.

"A lot of cities are leaning toward pro-arrest policies when it comes to
domestic violence," Morris said. "That may be the best way to handle these
cases, but a simple policy change like that can have a huge impact on a jail."

Expansion obstacles

So why not expand the jail? It's an option county officials have mulled in
the past.

Since the late 1990s, the Sheriff's Office has included a jail expansion -
with a price tag of up to $10 million - on its annual list of requests for
funding from the county. Every year, county staff have recommended against
funding it.

"Why did we do that?" said County Manager Reid. "I've got an easy answer
for that: there's no money."

The county faces millions in budget deficits over the next two years. And
even if the county were in the black, Reid said, a construction project of
that size would have to be funded through a property tax increase or a
sales tax. And that's not going to work, Reid said, in the current
political climate.

"The strange thing is that the biggest supporters of tough sentencing are
also the people who hate tax increases," Reid said. "They want to put more
people in jail, but they don't want to pay for new jail cells. It's like a
circular firing squad."

Chapman has an alternate plan - to convert a jail classroom and storage
room into new barracks-style dormitories for inmates, providing 60 beds at
a cost of about $400,000. It's still unclear whether the sheriff or the
county would find room for that in the budget.

A spokesman for the Florida Sheriffs' Association says even 60 new beds can
vanish quickly - because courts and law enforcement agencies tend to fill
any vacant space with inmates.

"If the local judges feel there's bed space available, they'll use it, in
many cases," said Tom Berlinger, director of law enforcement policy for the
Association.

Berlinger said that when he was working for Pasco County in the 1980s, the
county built a new jail big enough to meet the county's estimated jail
population for five years.

"Exactly three weeks after we built the jail, it was at capacity," he said.

Ultimately, it may be the courts, not the county, which decides whether a
jail expansion gets built. The current jail was built to comply with a 1989
court order demanding more jail beds to relieve overcrowding at the
county's old jail, built in the 1970s.

That's how most jails get built these days, Alachua County's chief circuit
judge said.

"More often than not, it takes a court order to make this happen," Morris said.