Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, June 23, 1993 TAG: 9306230182
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DOUGLAS PARDUE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
That's because the city jail no longer has the room to hold the number of federal prisoners it has been keeping, City Sheriff Alvin Hudson says. He has told the U.S. Marshals Service to remove all but 20 federal prisoners by July 1.
The jail has been holding an average of 50 federal prisoners a day, for which the city is paid $44 a day per inmate.
By cutting the number to 20 the jail will lose $481,000.
"It's great to get the money," Hudson says, but it's more important to ease overcrowding. "We operate at an unsafe level - tension, stress, it's unbelievable."
The only prisoners the city jail can choose to get rid of are federal inmates. The city keeps those as a convenience for federal authorities, who have no jail facilities in Western Virginia. Federal officials have only temporary holding cells at the federal courthouses, which are not designed for overnight housing of prisoners.
The city jail has a rated capacity of 236, but often holds as many as 500 prisoners, Hudson says. "You just can't keep people on the floor, piled-in. . . . We just don't have the room."
The sheriff says he is willing to keep 15 to 20 federal prisoners a day under an agreement with the U.S. Marshals Service. That agreement was made when the federal government recently paid half of the $500,000 cost for a 42-bed cell pod in an expansion area in the jail. The city also is considering construction of a $7 million, 200-bed annex that also may get some federal funding in exchange for cell space.
In the meantime, Hudson's restriction of federal prisoners has forced U.S. Marshal John B. Metzger III to look for other jails willing to keep federal inmates. Many of the inmates have been sent to Amherst County. Officials there were "delighted" to have the new federal money to pay for what had been a half-empty jail, Metzger says.
But, Metzger says, his office is going to have major problems carrying prisoners to trials and hearings, most of which are in the main federal courthouse in Roanoke. The Roanoke City Jail is two blocks from the federal courthouse; Amherst is 70 miles away. "That's a long haul."
It's an especially big problem considering that Metzger has just 14 marshals, including himself, to cover the Western District of Virginia. The federal district has seven regional courthouses from Charlottesville to Big Stone Gap. In addition, Metzger says, the federal war on drugs has increased the number of prisoners his office handles. In 1990 the average number of federal prisoners held in local jails in Western Virginia was 40. Now it's 160.
Metzger has warned judges, prosecutors and defense attorneys that marshals may have trouble getting prisoners to cases on short notice. And, Metzger says, investigators, lawyers and prosecutors may have to start traveling to distant jails to interview prisoners rather than having them brought to Roanoke.
"We're going to have trouble. . . . It's already started," he says.
Despite the obvious overcrowding in Roanoke, Metzger says he's surprised the city kicked the federal prisoners out. A half million dollars is a lot of money to lose. "I can't speak for them," he says.
Hudson says he has tried to make space for federal prisoners to help the marshal's office, but took in too many over the past year or two. The priority has to be safety and holding the city and state prisoners he's required to, Hudson says.
The state pays for most of the jail's $4.7 million budget. Money the jail gets for federal prisoners is turned over to the city and is used to partially offset the city's share of jail costs, and plan and pay for jail expansion.
Although city officials say most of the federal prisoner money is used to house the inmates, some is profit and goes toward other city expenses. An exact accounting of that was not available Tuesday. But acting city Finance Director James Grisso says excess money has been used for such things as street lighting and Hotel Roanoke project promotion efforts.
"It's a benefit," he says.
Hudson agrees, but he says the jail can't keep putting three people in the space for one.
\ Federal prisoners in western virginia jails\ \ Albemarle Co./Charlottesville 13\ Bristol 2\ Danville 7\ Winchester 1\ Roanoke 18\ Washington Co. 8\ Roanoke Co./Salem 7\ Rockbridge Co. 19\ Central Va./Orange 48\ Botetourt Co. 2\ Amherst Co. 20\ On Bond 291\
by CNB