ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, February 13, 1996 TAG: 9602130104
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A6 EDITION: METRO
RELIEF is in sight for the overcrowding that's been at dangerous levels for years at the Roanoke City Jail. With the opening of a new $9 million jail annex this month, the city's capacity for prisoners will more than double.
No question the additional 304 beds are needed - what with some 570 inmates regularly packed into the existing jail, and with operating capacity intended for only 238.
Under current conditions, says Roanoke Sheriff Alvin Hudson, ``the tension is so high, we're having fight after fight after fight'' - putting at risk the safety of jailers as well as inmates. If anything, the expansion project is long overdue.
Still, let's restrain our celebrations.
Necessary as it may be, the new facility stands as an unwelcome reminder that the criminal population continues to grow, despite the good efforts of city law-enforcement officials, and of their citizen-partners in the neighborhoods, to control it.
The new jail annex probably won't be one of the sites shown off to visitors scouting for new business locations or promoted as a must-see for tourists.
Roanoke, of course, is by no means the only medium-sized city in the state or nation that finds it must now provide small-prison scale accommodations for lawbreakers. Nor is it the only community that's having to divert funds into jails that could be put to more productive use in public schools, human services and community amenities.
And the trend line is not encouraging. If the city thought it could get by with a jail to hold 162 in 1979, and now needs one that Hudson says can hold up to 800, what size jail will it need in another 17 years?
Relief of overcrowded conditions at the jail could be put off no longer, especially as the state continues to force localities to house people who once would have gone into the state prison system.
But this is no time for a sigh of relief or a complacent impression that we've dealt with crime by adding jail beds. An assortment of steps must be taken, from expanded community policing to more alternative sentencing, from greater efforts to fight poverty and substance abuse to earlier intervention with at-risk youth, if there is to be any relief from the burden of building ever-bigger jails forevermore.
As Hudson points out, the newly expanded Roanoke jail will soon be filled beyond its operating capacity.
LENGTH: Short : 49 linesby CNB