THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, August 30, 1994 TAG: 9408300392
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JOE JACKSON, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: Medium: 81 lines
Corrections officials will move more than 120 felons from the City Jail to state prisons this week in an attempt to relieve the severe overcrowding cited recently by the U.S. Department of Justice.
Two state Corrections Department buses, with bars in the windows, parked behind the jail Monday for the first day of transfers, jail officials said. Fifty male prisoners were moved Monday and 53 more will be shipped out today. On Wednesday, 20 female prisoners will be moved, Sheriff Robert McCabe said.
``I've been told personally by (Corrections Department superintendent) Ron Angelone that Norfolk is at the top of the priority list statewide for moving prisoners,'' McCabe said Monday. ``We have more state inmates than all the other Tidewater jails combined.''
The inmates are being transferred to medium-security prisons throughout the state. According to a new state law that went into effect July 1, prisoners are classified as state felons and sent to state prisons if they are convicted of a felony and receive a sentence of more than three years. Before July 1, the cutoff was a sentence of more than four years.
Officials say it is one of the largest en masse transfers of state felons from the jail.
``The state is responsible for these inmates within 60 days of their sentencing,'' McCabe said. ``Unfortunately, until recently, the state hasn't been in compliance'' with the law.
Earlier this month, a report by the Justice Department concluded that the ``grossly overcrowded'' City Jail is a serious public-health threat where living conditions are ``offensive to elementary concepts of human decency.'' The report - based on inspections of the jail in November and December - lists more than 50 problems that jail officials must correct to avoid being sued by the Justice Department.
The jail's underlying problem, the report said, was severe overcrowding. The jail, built to hold 597 prisoners, housed 1,418 inmates on Monday before the felons were removed, McCabe said.
The Justice report concluded that the jail's population was so large that the jail was functioning as a ``de facto prison - a role it was not designed, equipped or staffed to fulfill.''
State officials had told McCabe they planned to move state felons before the Justice report was released. ``Still, it sure is nice and coincidental that so many are getting moved now,'' said McCabe's spokesman, George Schaeffer.
The report demanded that McCabe come up with a plan by Sept. 20 to cut the jail's population nearly in half, to 750 inmates, and then implement that plan within six months.
``By Wednesday, we'll be down to about 1,300 prisoners . . . and the state also said it'd take another 20 women next week,'' McCabe said, adding that state officials promised to take ``another couple hundred inmates by the first of next year.''
Between January and Monday, corrections officials had transferred a total of more than 300 state felons.
``The problem is that there are more people being sentenced,'' McCabe said. ``Also, since there's been a reduction in the parole-grant rate, there's a bigger backlog of people in prison. Last Tuesday, our population went up to 1,425, an all-time record.''
Jail officials said there are 452 state felons in the jail who are eligible to be moved to prisons. That was 32 percent of Monday's total jail population. ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
CHRISTOPHER REDDICK/Staff
City Jail inmates board a bus to Dillwyn Correctional Center on
Monday. Fifty inmates were moved Monday to various prisons.
Graphic
A WAYS TO GO...
Number of prisoners before Monday's move: 1,418
U.S.-mandated population goal in six months: 750
KEYWORDS: NORFOLK CITY JAIL by CNB