AN OVERBOOKED JAIL

How many different ways do the county commissioners need to hear it?

The Greensboro jail is overcrowded.It is not big enough for the number of
inmates Guilford chooses to incarcerate. Too many prisoners are making the
jail unsafe for guards and inmates alike. The county needs to increase its
jail space and take on fewer inmates.

The latest attempt to get through to the county comes from a stinging grand
jury report that declares conditions "inhumane." The commissioners will
have reached a new low if they continue burying the issue and waiting for
federal authorities to impose costly and inflexible jail-building mandates
on taxpayers.

They can save the county money by heeding suggestions such as
commissioners' chair Skip Alston's to reduce the demand for jail space and
Sheriff BJ Barnes' to increase the supply of jail space.

Immediately, that may mean releasing some prisoners and transferring others
to house arrest or the county prison farm. In the future, permanent
alternatives such as drug treatment and diversion programs should be
established and applied to more defendants -- especially first-time offenders.

Guilford is not alone. The commissioners can learn much from observing the
way other counties have dealt with jail crowding. We cannot afford, for
instance, to repeat Rockingham County's mistakes. Commissioners there have
initiated three studies since 1978, all of which told them the county
needed new justice system space.

Meanwhile, Brunswick County denied it had a problem. So last August,
inmates staged a hunger strike in protest of crowding.

Mecklenburg County offers slightly more hope. It tackled crowding by
expanding pretrial release. So someone with a previously clean record who
faces relatively minor charges may await trial at home. That way, space and
resources spent holding defendants accused of trespassing or making and
selling counterfeit drugs could be freed up for those charged with serious
offenses such as homicide, rape and armed robbery.

Yet even good ideas can come too late. Those pre-trial release changes in
Mecklenburg couldn't stave off a lawsuit resulting in a federal order to
build new, multi-million-dollar jail space. Durham County met the same fate.

More success lies closer to home. Two years ago, a judge's order relieved
overflowing Alamance County jails by exempting people serving weekend
sentences. Officials there also expanded pretrial release for nonviolent
offenders, and even found state funds to help.

Irritable, resentful prisoners packed tightly together are more likely to
be violent or spread sickness, worsening conditions for jailers, visitors
and support staff. If Guilford doesn't take care of its own, federal
officials will force our hands, probably at greater pain and taxpayer
expense than if county leaders had simply applied some foresight to the
problem.

There's no other way to say it. The time to act is now.