strongernow
06-25-2004, 10:54 AM
Georgia will bail out local jailers
$2.5 million more OK'd for backlog
By JAMES SALZER, CARLOS CAMPOS
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 06/16/04
The backlog of prison-bound inmates clogging county jails grows daily and forced top state officials Wednesday to allocate another $2.5 million to pay for their housing.
The move by a House-Senate budget subcommittee came just a few months after lawmakers approved sending counties an additional $8.9 million to help pay for the thousands of extra jail inmates awaiting beds in state prisons.
The jail backlog has increased from about 1,200 inmates to about 3,000 during the past three years, budget officials said. The $8.9 million was expected to pay for an average daily backlog of 2,500, and lawmakers thought that money would be all the state would have to spend.
"We were way behind the curve on this," said Gov. Sonny Perdue, who serves as a member of the joint subcommittee. "We've got 2,000 more [inmates] coming in every year than we have going out. That's a large prison per year."
One result is that the fiscal 2005 budget, starting July 1, includes money for more prison space, including $8 million to lease 1,500 beds in a nearly completed private prison in Stewart County.
Speaker Terry Coleman (D-Eastman), another member of the subcommittee, said many counties could not afford to build new jails or additions to ease overcrowding.
"I hear some folks aren't serving warrants because they just don't have the room to put people," Coleman said.
Packed jails are a widespread problem in Georgia, which has the sixth-largest prison population in the nation. Sheriffs throughout Georgia have begged the Department of Corrections to move inmates out of their jails and into state prisons to help ease crowding.
But the 48,000-inmate state prison system is also at capacity, and its population continues to grow. The number of felons locked up has more than doubled since 1993 because of tougher sentencing laws and stricter parole policies.
After felons are sentenced, they might sit in a county jail for months awaiting a prison bed. Counties in turn are forced to spend millions building new jails or adding to their existing facilities.
The backlog has fluctuated for years and resulted in waves of state prison and jail construction.
In Gwinnett County, for instance, officials plan to break ground July 6 for a $75 million 1,440-bed expansion of the jail there. Gwinnett is paying to house as many as 250 state prison inmates, most of them in other county and city jails, Sheriff Butch Conway said.
The state pays counties $20 a day per inmate. But it costs Gwinnett County about $25 a day to house them, Conway said, so the county loses $5 each day for every state inmate.
About 100 of the inmates from Gwinnett, most of them state prisoners, are held in the city jail in Pelham. The county pays the city $35 a day to house them — $15 more per day than the state reimbursement for holding its inmates.
Conway was happy to see the state acknowledge the problem by spending the additional money.
"Just the fact that they've adjusted the budget really pleases me, because over the past three or four years, the talk has been about cutting state beds, and every time I read that, I get ulcers," Conway said.
"It just puts more of a burden on the counties. Gov. Perdue realizes . . . it's a problem for sheriffs. "
Perdue noted Wednesday that Georgia Corrections Commissioner James Donald had embarked on a program to reduce recidivism among the state's prison population. Donald hopes to flatten the growth in the state prison population by diverting nonviolent inmates into vocational, educational and substance abuse programs that help decrease their chance of returning to prison
$2.5 million more OK'd for backlog
By JAMES SALZER, CARLOS CAMPOS
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 06/16/04
The backlog of prison-bound inmates clogging county jails grows daily and forced top state officials Wednesday to allocate another $2.5 million to pay for their housing.
The move by a House-Senate budget subcommittee came just a few months after lawmakers approved sending counties an additional $8.9 million to help pay for the thousands of extra jail inmates awaiting beds in state prisons.
The jail backlog has increased from about 1,200 inmates to about 3,000 during the past three years, budget officials said. The $8.9 million was expected to pay for an average daily backlog of 2,500, and lawmakers thought that money would be all the state would have to spend.
"We were way behind the curve on this," said Gov. Sonny Perdue, who serves as a member of the joint subcommittee. "We've got 2,000 more [inmates] coming in every year than we have going out. That's a large prison per year."
One result is that the fiscal 2005 budget, starting July 1, includes money for more prison space, including $8 million to lease 1,500 beds in a nearly completed private prison in Stewart County.
Speaker Terry Coleman (D-Eastman), another member of the subcommittee, said many counties could not afford to build new jails or additions to ease overcrowding.
"I hear some folks aren't serving warrants because they just don't have the room to put people," Coleman said.
Packed jails are a widespread problem in Georgia, which has the sixth-largest prison population in the nation. Sheriffs throughout Georgia have begged the Department of Corrections to move inmates out of their jails and into state prisons to help ease crowding.
But the 48,000-inmate state prison system is also at capacity, and its population continues to grow. The number of felons locked up has more than doubled since 1993 because of tougher sentencing laws and stricter parole policies.
After felons are sentenced, they might sit in a county jail for months awaiting a prison bed. Counties in turn are forced to spend millions building new jails or adding to their existing facilities.
The backlog has fluctuated for years and resulted in waves of state prison and jail construction.
In Gwinnett County, for instance, officials plan to break ground July 6 for a $75 million 1,440-bed expansion of the jail there. Gwinnett is paying to house as many as 250 state prison inmates, most of them in other county and city jails, Sheriff Butch Conway said.
The state pays counties $20 a day per inmate. But it costs Gwinnett County about $25 a day to house them, Conway said, so the county loses $5 each day for every state inmate.
About 100 of the inmates from Gwinnett, most of them state prisoners, are held in the city jail in Pelham. The county pays the city $35 a day to house them — $15 more per day than the state reimbursement for holding its inmates.
Conway was happy to see the state acknowledge the problem by spending the additional money.
"Just the fact that they've adjusted the budget really pleases me, because over the past three or four years, the talk has been about cutting state beds, and every time I read that, I get ulcers," Conway said.
"It just puts more of a burden on the counties. Gov. Perdue realizes . . . it's a problem for sheriffs. "
Perdue noted Wednesday that Georgia Corrections Commissioner James Donald had embarked on a program to reduce recidivism among the state's prison population. Donald hopes to flatten the growth in the state prison population by diverting nonviolent inmates into vocational, educational and substance abuse programs that help decrease their chance of returning to prison