Pubdate: Sun, 04 Feb 2007
Source: Spartanburg Herald Journal (SC)
Contact:  2007 The Spartanburg Herald-Journal
Website: http://www.goupstate.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/977
Author: Monica Mercer

LAW ENFORCEMENT DEALS WITH CROWDED JAIL

Spartanburg County Detention Facility Director Larry Powers Says He 
Wishes the Movie "Field of Dreams" Had Never Been Made.

For him, the phrase, "If you build it, they will come," just hit a 
bit too close to home, since he figured at the time it had more to do 
with jails than baseball fields.

"When they built this jail, they all came," Powers said with a sardonic grin.

The county's current facility on California Avenue was constructed in 
1994 to remedy chronic overcrowding. Yet within a month, every bed 
had been filled, and within four years the county was back to square 
one with the jail population again exceeding space. Today, there is 
an average of 800 inmates at any given time with room for only 586 at 
the main facility and its two small annexes.

As County Council prepares to review administration's recommendation 
to address overcrowding by essentially doing the same thing as in the 
past -- expanding the jail to the tune of $33.5 million -- county law 
enforcement officials continue to grapple with ways to curb the local 
jail population while admitting that the need for more space is unavoidable.

Powers said the state Department of Corrections has for years 
pressured local jails to alleviate overcrowding, but because the 
jails in counties with larger populations such as Charleston have 
always been much worse, the state is just now honing in on

Spartanburg.

Yet overcrowding at local jails -- which is a national problem 
according to the U.S. Department of Justice's Bureau of Labor 
Statistics -- doesn't necessarily coincide with more people 
committing more crimes, Powers said. According to the most recent 
crime statistics, all reported crimes in the city of Spartanburg 
decreased by 7 percent in 2006 compared with 2005.

A better explanation for jail overcrowding might be in the more 
mundane details -- for instance, Powers said, when Spartanburg County 
municipalities over the years "decided they didn't want to be in the 
prisoner business anymore" and gradually turned things over to the 
county jail. Add to that the nonviolent offenders who often sit in 
jail longer than necessary because they can't make bail -- currently 
there are about 100 such local cases -- and court systems unable to 
adjudicate cases fast enough.

"All these things affect the jail population, not necessarily that 
there are more prisoners," Powers said.

In 2005, County Council requested a jail overcrowding committee be 
formed to study such issues, and 7th Circuit Solicitor Trey Gowdy, 
who also leads the committee, said the group has made headway in 
streamlining the process of moving inmates through the jail.

Gowdy said the county's three circuit judges have been generous in 
hearing criminal cases even when criminal court is not in session, 
often giving up vacation time to do so. He also advocated for Gordon 
Cooper, a Master-in-Equity who normally hears only those cases 
referred by circuit judges, to be designated a "special" circuit 
judge. Cooper now hears probation cases, which frees up circuit 
judges for trials and guilty pleas.

Such measures over the past year, said Powers, have helped inmates 
get through the system in weeks rather than months.

The home detention program -- which allows offenders to be monitored 
at home rather than sit in jail -- also has modestly lightened the 
burden. Of the 360 people who have gone through the program, only 102 
have been sent back to jail for violations. Six participants have 
escaped and have yet to be caught.

But overcrowding persists.

The committee made additional "very specific suggestions" for 
remedies in its 2005 report to Council. Most have not been 
implemented yet, Gowdy said.

There was the idea to create a county fund where money could be 
posted on bonds under $10,000 so "inmates can be released and are not 
held unnecessarily at county expense." And at the top of the list was 
expansion of the jail, which Gowdy called "essential."

"It's not that (Council) disagreed with our findings, it's just a 
multi-million-dollar decision to make more bed space and expand a 
jail," Gowdy said. "We're doing everything we know how to do, and we 
still have an overcrowding problem."

In a recent interview, Council Chairman Jeff Horton agreed.

"We've purged that entity there as best we can," Horton said. "The 
fact is, as the community grows, the population of the jail will grow, too."
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