Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, June 9, 1993 TAG: 9306090295
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By DAVID M. POOLE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Today, the jail is so crowded that all 102 cells are filled and several dozen inmates sleep on mattresses placed on the floor.
"The jail was built for future growth," Roanoke County Sheriff Gerald Holt said. "The bottom line is, the future is here."
Tuesday, Holt unveiled a three-step, $5.7 million plan that would nearly double the number of permanent beds and keep up with the estimated growth in inmate population through the year 2014.
Holt made his pitch to a captive audience - members of the Board of Supervisors who went behind bars for an hour-long work session and dinner.
The sheriff said he and his corrections staff were managing to handle an inmate population that averages about 140 and peaks to about 180 on weekends.
The situation is not nearly as dire as at the Roanoke City Jail, where inmates are sleeping in triple-bunked cells and judges have ordered City Council to find a solution as quickly as possible.
"We haven't reached a crisis here, but we don't want to reach that point," he said.
Holt asked the Board of Supervisors to consider spending $15,000 for an engineering and feasibility study of his three-phase proposal:
Double-bunk existing cells to create a total of 208 permanent beds. The work would cost about $48,000 and take about six months to complete.
Transform the open-air recreation area on the sixth floor into a 37-bed dormitory for jail trusties. The work would cost $1.2 million and take two years to complete.
Expand the present facility to add 140 beds and build a new administration building for the sheriff's office. The work would cost an estimated $4.4 million and take several years to complete.
The Roanoke County-Salem Jail was designed to hold suspects awaiting trial and inmates sentenced to 12 months or less.
But the facility has turned into a mini-prison because the state Department of Corrections no longer accepts inmates sentenced to fewer than four years in prison.
Holt noted that more than half of the 151 prisoners held Tuesday would at one time have been serving their sentences in state facilities. In fact, 31 prisoners had been sentenced to five years or more, he said.
The three-phase program would give the jail a capacity of 385 inmates.
County Administrator Elmer Hodge said the county could pay for the first two phases with general fund money and contributions from Salem City Council. Hodge suggested issuing bonds to pay for the final phase.
Holt said the third phase would create capacity for growth and enable the county to generate income by housing federal inmates.
He estimated that the facility would generate $438,000 a year by housing 30 federal inmates at the rate of $40 per inmate per day.
Hollins District Supervisor Bob Johnson said the revenue almost could be enough to service the annual bond debt. But Holt suggested using the money to pay the salaries of the estimated 19 additional corrections officers that would be needed for the larger jail.
Holt recommended against a formal contract with the federal government because it would obligate the county to accept inmates with discipline problems or costly medical needs. A less formal agreement would allow the county to be more selective in the type of inmates it would accept, he said.
The advantage of a long-term contract, however, would be that the federal government would pay up to $50,000 per bed in construction costs, Holt said.
Hodge said the county staff would develop financing options and would find out how much Salem and the state would be willing to chip in.
The dinner-work session was held in the jail library, where corrections officers set up a banquet table decorated with a white paper tablecloth and vases filled with flowers.
As the meeting broke up, Holt urged members of the Board of Supervisors and county staff to help themselves to the floral arrangements because he did not want the vases to be sitting around where inmates could get them.
"I don't want them to become a weapon," he said.
by CNB