INCREASE OF INMATES DRIVES JAIL BUDGET UP

The population at the Whitfield County jail has almost doubled in the past
three years and - while possible explanations abound - nobody's exactly
sure why the explosion is occurring.

One thing county officials do know is that the increase in population will
require the sheriff's office budget to increase by approximately $2.77
million for 2003, which will pay for about 36 extra personnel for the jail,
and additional food and other housing expenses and medical expenses for
inmates.

The sheriff's office 2002 budget included about $3.9 million for the jail.

Most popular among the explanations for the jail's increased population is
that the county's population is growing, "which equates to more violators,
which equates to more people in jail," Sheriff Scott Chitwood said.

Also, "the courts and judicial system are overloaded and have a backlog of
cases," causing more inmates to be held longer "awaiting court appearance,"
Chitwood said.

"Our daily count will now average in the 350 range consistently. During the
first of September we hit our all-time high of 370 inmates that Whitfield
County was accountable for."

This number is up from an average daily jail population of 185 in January 2000.

In the 30 months between January 2000 and July 2002, the average population
grew 74 percent, Tommy Johnson, internal auditor for the county, said.

With this growth in mind, officials estimate that the jail's population
will continue growing by 2.07 percent per month.

If this projection becomes fact, the annual increase would be 27.87
percent, taking the current jail population of 350 inmates up to 448 by the
end of 2003, and to 572 by the end of 2004.

The new county jail - which will hold about 220 or 240 inmates in the first
pod - is set to open in the spring, but if the current jail population
continues, on any given day more than 100 inmates will be farmed out to
jails in other counties.

County officials had hoped building the new jail at a cost of $21.1 million
would end that practice and might even generate revenue by housing inmates
from other counties.

Staffing the new jail will take at least 36 more jail employees than the
current one has, and that's with only the first pod staffed, officials say.

With two pods open, the jail will hold up to 540 inmates and will require
the hiring of even more jail personnel. Other than funding the staff to
handle so many inmates, one of the major problems is finding enough people
to take the jobs, jail officials have said.

And with projections calling for about 570 inmates at the jail in two
years, by the end of 2004 the county will have to be prepared to open the
third pod of the jail, county administrator Bradley Arnold told
commissioners recently.

Some factors currently driving up the number of inmates in the county will
hopefully be eliminated in the next couple of years, helping to keep the
number down, officials said.

"I know that one of the things that sometimes delays the (Superior) Court's
consideration of an inmate's bond or probation" is the fact that the
inmates sometimes aren't around, chief Superior Court Judge William T.
Boyett said.

"We have had several occasions when a defendant's bond hearing had to be
delayed because he's in a different jail, in Pelham or wherever," Boyett said.

There's only room for 124 inmates at the current jail, and all the extras
are farmed out to other jails. If the scheduling isn't worked out exactly
right, the inmates sometimes aren't brought to the courthouse for their
hearings, meaning the county has effectively added to the inmate count for
that day - and successive days, if it would have been possible for the
inmate to have been given bond.

"At other times, people who have been sentenced already are held until the
state picks them up, and it sometimes takes a while" for the state to do
so, Boyett said.

While these are not the only causes of the jail's overall population, they
probably do contribute to the growing problem, he said.

One thing that almost certainly doesn't cause the population growth is
increased sentencing for law breakers, Boyett said.

While specific crimes do lead to mandated sentences, "most of those have
been in effect for more than two or three years," so they can't be blamed
for the increase, he said.

District Attorney Kermit McManus agreed.

"There have been some few changes in laws that require mandatory time in
jail, but not many," McManus said. "We sentence people to more time in jail
for DUIs than we did about 10 years ago, but I really don't think that's
what is causing this."

Much of the blame can instead be placed on "repeat offenders" and "more
serious crimes" than typically were committed in the past, McManus added.

People who are charged with trafficking methamphetamine and cocaine -
trafficking is defined as possession of an ounce or more of either of these
drugs - "once they're arrested, they don't need to be getting out of jail,
so the courts are denying bond," McManus said.

Instead of being given bond, those charged are held in the jail "until they
are tried, or until they're sent to the state prison system," which can
take several months, he said.

Jury selection for the trials of two inmates who were arrested Aug. 29
began last week, almost two months after the arrests, "and that's about as
quickly as you can get a case tried," Boyett said.

The district attorney's office and the court administrator review -
independently - the jail lists each week, looking at those who have not
been indicted to see "why they're still in jail," and to make sure that
bond isn't appropriate in each case, McManus said.

"We try to make sure that bond isn't appropriate for every person who is in
the jail," he said. "A lot of them just don't need to be out of jail"
before their trials.

A growing illegal immigrant problem adds to the jail population, as well,
McManus said.

"Those that are not in this country legally, who commit crimes, even if
they could bond out on the drug charges or other charges, have to be held
in the jail" while Immigration and Naturalization Service proceedings are
under way, McManus said. "They can't be bonded out."

The court system also has to wait for reports to be returned from the state
crime lab, he said. All drug seizures must be tested and verified by the
crime lab to be drugs, and it sometimes takes weeks or months for the
reports to be returned.

"We can't proceed until we get those results back, and they have a
tremendous amount of work to do," McManus said.

Boyett said that while he is "not aware of a backlog" in the courts, the
courts could operate "more efficiently," and he expects them to after the
new courthouse is built.

The current courthouse has only one real courtroom, with other, smaller
rooms also being used for court. There is not enough room in the other
"courtrooms" for efficient use, he said.
When the courthouse is renovated and the new addition - with four
additional courtrooms - is completed, efficiency will go up and more
people's cases will be managed in a shorter time, Boyett said.

This will also, however, require increased court services personnel,
"sheriff's deputies who transport prisoners, provide security and are also
charged with serving civil papers," he said.
"The more we can schedule events in a timely fashion - arraignments,
calendar calls and other court dates - the more we'll be able to get them
out of the jail" and either acquitted or sent to state prison, Boyett said.

"We have to schedule a lot of things around our lack of facilities, and we
avoid scheduling too many cases for a particular day because of the lack of
available court service staff."

It has been several years since the county approved money to the sheriff's
office for additional personnel, Chitwood said.

"I'll be surprised if they haven't asked for something like that in the
2003 budget," Babb said, noting that almost every year the county declines
to fund some request for additional personnel for the sheriff's office.
Chitwood acknowledged that the sheriff's office has asked for additional
court services personnel for 2003.

"We hope to have the new courthouse built and occupied by the end of 2004,"
Babb said, and completing it will free up a few sheriff's office personnel.

"Those people who are now running all over the state picking up prisoners"
will be free to work closer to Whitfield County when the jail holds a
greater percentage of the county's inmates, and security personnel at the
entrance to the courthouse annex and "the judicial annex at the old fire
hall" will be relocated "to better serve the courts" after the courthouse
is complete, he said.

The courthouse-construction process will start when the people in the
judicial annex are moved into the Central Church of Christ facility which
the county has purchased in February so the firehouse can be torn down to
make room for the courthouse addition, Babb said.

There is a more immediate step the board of commissioners wants to take, he
said.

"What I want to do with the jail system is find out how Paulding County"
managed to become "the lowest-priced keeper of inmates in the state," Babb
said. "They're able to keep their inmates for much cheaper than we do," at
about $22.50 per inmate per day compared to Whitfield County's $44 or $45
per day, "and we need to see why.

"It may just be a different way of bookkeeping, but there may be more to it."