Several solutions being considered for crowding in Cache jailhouse

Alicia Wiser

Seeking to solve overcrowding issues at the jail house, the Cache County Sheriff’s Office and the U.S. District Court of Salt Lake City said it hopes to find a workable alternative.

In 1991, the jail was sued by inmates for overcrowding. At that time, there were 49 beds available, with the admitted number of inmates ranging in the high 70s.

“We will not allow the facility to be overcrowded again,” said Lt. Von Williamson of the sheriff’s office. “The county is aware [that we have overcrowding problems] and is trying to solve the problem.”

The jail facility today holds 81 beds, four of which are used as holding cells.

“We need to keep available space open to manage disciplinary problems within the facility,” said Sgt. Daron Henri. The four holding cells are used as “segregation cells and time-out cells. They are also kept open so we will have room in case a new inmate is admitted,” Henri said.

Having only 77 beds available has become a problem.

The average daily population of inmates for 2000 was approximately 90, Williamson said, though some days the number was as high as 102.

To alleviate this problem, the county commissioned a needs-assessment study last fall to provide a 20-year master plan.

The city ended up with four feasible options.

The first and possibly most viable option is to build a 464-bed facility and a new sheriff’s office at another location, Williamson said.

“We are looking at the west side of Logan near the landfill as a possible site,” he said. “But that is extremely preliminary.”

The second solution suggests adding 208 beds to the current jail facility. The problem with this proposal, Williamson said, is there is very limited room to expand and remodel the current facilities.

He said the third alternative, which is similar to the first, only proposes a new facility with 344 beds.

The fourth option is what the county has been doing for the past two years: Rent bed space at nearby jail facilities.

The county currently rents out 10 beds from Box Elder County and is looking at contracting with Weber County’s 800-bed facility for bed space.

The problem with contracting with other jails throughout the northern Utah area for bed space is that Cache County is losing money, Williamson said.

“The first alternative is, overall, the best. It is projected to save the county money for several years,” he said. “[With the fourth alternative], we would be spending a million dollars per year [renting bed space] within five years’ time. If we adopted the first alternative, we could contract out 250 to 300 beds and bring in an income that would outweigh the net expense it would take to run the facility.”

A committee of county officials, Rep. Lorraine Pace, Sen. Lyle Hillyard and eight to 12 county citizens has been appointed by the county to review the four alternatives and make a recommendation as to which will best meet Cache County’s needs, Williamson said. This committee plans to meet Saturday to discuss the issue.

Williamson hopes the committee will reach a decision within the next week or two so that they can begin to break ground mid-year. Williamson would like to have the overcrowding problem solved by next year or 2003.

In the meantime, Cache County has a federal grant-funded work-diversion program giving judges the option to offer an alternate sentence to non-violent misdemeanors.

“This has helped some but hasn’t solved the overcrowding problem,” Williamson said.

Utah State University’s recycling center is one of the places that benefits from the work-diversion program. Workers are sent one to two days a week in the wintertime to work in the recycling center, Williamson said.