MDC population ebbs with some inmates transferred, many released

Officials say more than two dozen of the most “staff intensive” inmates were moved from the Bernalillo County jail to a Santa Fe prison, a shift intended to alleviate the burden on chronically low staffing levels in a time of increasing arrests.

But largely due to those arrested on lesser charges being released, the jail population has already dropped 9% since Oct. 10, far below the 1,950 people the facility is allowed to hold.

Candace Hopkins, a spokeswoman for the Metropolitan Detention Center, said it has moved 28 people from MDC to the Santa Fe prison over the past two weeks.

“These inmates are staff-intensive inmates, who require a lot of manpower and attention to house in our facility,” Hopkins said in an email Friday. She said the first group was moved on Oct. 11 and the second on Oct. 17.

In an Oct. 10 news conference with Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, state Corrections Secretary Alisha Tafoya Lucero said they would house 48 of MDC’s “most staff-intensive, violent, dangerous, inmates.”

The announcement came after authorities said they had arrested 502 people in 20 days across Bernalillo County, 98 of them on misdemeanors, during an update on the governor’s attempts to combat gun violence. Jail reform advocates and defense attorneys immediately criticized increasing the population at the facility, which has been beleaguered by dozens of inmate deaths since 2020.

At the time of the news conference, MDC’s population was 1,647, or 84% full, while it was missing 38% of its maximum staff due to vacancies.

However, Hopkins said Friday, transferring 48 inmates was deemed not necessary as MDC’s population quickly fell, as it often does, mainly due to inmates being released on their own recognizance.

The drop also included, according to officials, the 15 to 25 inmates who are transferred weekly from MDC to prison after being sentenced.

Since the news conference, MDC’s population has dropped from 1,647 inmates to 1,499 as of Friday afternoon. The facility’s capacity, outlined in a yearslong settlement agreement, is 1,950 inmates.

Hopkins said no more inmate transfers were planned for now.

“MDC will examine inmate population numbers in the coming weeks to determine if any other inmate transfers are necessary,” she said.

The arrests came with other costs for the facility.

During a MDC Advisory Board Meeting on Wednesday, MDC Warden Jason Jones said the majority of extra expenses came from paying staff overtime to book the influx of inmates.

He said that’s because the facility is 62% staffed. Jones added, however, that keeping people around is hard due to overtime, particularly for younger people who make up much of their recruits.

“To them, working a 16-hour shift is asking the world,” he said. “They’re all tied to the cellphones, and being away from the cellphone for 16 hours or away from their video game system or whatever. That’s a really big deal for them.”

Jones asked Lujan Grisham for $2.1 million to help pay for overtime, housing and to open additional pods at MDC in mid-September after the governor requested the facility increase its population by 350 inmates over 90 days.

He said during Wednesday’s meeting that such an increase would put a “severe strain” on MDC under the current conditions. Jones said the requested funds will be necessary if authorities “get cranked up again and and start picking people up.”

He added, ”If they’re gonna continue on with it, and they provide what we submitted for, then we will be in pretty good shape.”

Although population levels have dropped at MDC, Jones said the facility is still shouldering a less-foreseen effect of the bookings: COVID.

Currently, three staff and eight inmates have tested positive at MDC, which leads to quarantining large areas of the facility.

“We had not had any COVID for over four months,” Jones said. “And then, all of a sudden, we got jammed with all these inmates. And now we get four or five pods on quarantine because people are testing positive.”

He said despite all the issues, morale is higher than it’s been since he came on board last October.

“Staff are happy, staff are working hard,” Jones said. “We’re out there every day in and out of those pods, in and out of the housing units, talking with them ... doing what we can to help them, whether it’s feeding chow, throwing trash, pulling the chow carts ... we’re out there doing it, and they recognize that, so their morale is pretty good.”