Jail crowding will not be alleviated by transfers

Bernalillo County won’t relieve overcrowding in the jail anytime soon by shipping inmates elsewhere — at least not without a court order.

That much was clear late Tuesday, when a $1.4 million proposal to transfer inmates failed on a 2-2 vote of the County Commission.

The tie vote came after county executives warned that a federal judge might order more severe measures if the county doesn’t reduce the jail population on its own.

County Attorney Randy Autio said inmates’ attorneys in a long-running civil-rights lawsuit want the jail population reduced to around 1,850, down from about 2,500 now. The county’s temporary plan to ship inmates elsewhere was aimed at getting the population down to the jail’s design capacity of 2,236.

“It’s much better to solve a problem for yourself than to have it solved by a court,” Autio said.

The proposal failed, with commissioners split evenly. Maggie Hart Stebbins and Debbie O’Malley supported the inmate transfers. Art De La Cruz and Wayne Johnson voted “no,” and Lonnie Talbert was absent.

De La Cruz and Johnson repeatedly expressed frustration over whether every inmate in jail really needs to be there. They suggested that shipping inmates to other jails would be a costly, temporary fix that doesn’t address the root problems in the criminal-justice system.

Johnson said the jail shouldn’t be a place to house the homeless or addicts who need treatment.

“These are serious societal problems we have to deal with, and unfortunately, the county isn’t left with the tools to do so,” Johnson said.

De La Cruz said state or local judges could help solve the problem by going through the list of 457 inmates in custody for minor offenses and seeing which ones could be released. These are inmates who are awaiting trial on minor infractions simply because they can’t afford bail, he said.

“The reality is, many of these inmates shouldn’t even be in jail,” De La Cruz said.

The county had earlier asked U.S. District Judge James A. Parker to give the jail until April 22 to get the population reduced. What will happen now isn’t clear, but the judge could issue an order.

Hart Stebbins argued it was better to take voluntary action to reduce the jail population. The county might have to ship inmates out to meet a future court order anyway, she said, and if so, the order could be much more strict than what’s under consideration now.

“I think, at this point, it’s just irresponsible not to approve this,” Hart Stebbins said. “I anticipate we’ll be back here (soon) under court order.”

The local jail system has been chronically overcrowded for decades. It’s the subject of a federal civil rights lawsuit, filed in 1995 and still continuing today.

Autio said Judge Parker is pressing the county to reduce overcrowding and improve inmate safety. The county has had some success cutting the population, Autio said, by working with the state court system to get more inmates into pre-trial community supervision programs.

But that hasn’t been enough.

Tuesday’s proposal would have authorized $1.4 million through the end of June to send 300 or so inmates to other jails in New Mexico or Texas. It would probably cost about $6 million for a full year.

De La Cruz said it wouldn’t be right to send inmates to other jails where Bernalillo County’s ability to monitor conditions is limited. There are other alternatives, he said.

“We can ask Judge Parker to order us to release low-risk offenders” if state courts won’t do that, De La Cruz said.

He also broached the idea of creating an overflow jail for low-level inmates.

De La Cruz noted that inmates tend to stay longer inside the Bernalillo County jail on average than inmates do in other parts of the country, suggesting inefficiency in the local criminal justice system.

“It seems the only one making any significant effort is Bernalillo County,” De La Cruz said. “I think we have to find a way to pressure our community members to (help) solve this problem.”

The county spends some $63 million a year operating the Metropolitan Detention Center, which opened about 10 years ago on the West Mesa, replacing the old Downtown jail. The MDC is one of the largest jails in the country.
— This article appeared on page A1 of the Albuquerque Journal