MDC warden resigns weeks after being placed on leave

The warden of the Metropolitan Detention Center resigned Tuesday after being placed on administrative leave for undisclosed reasons.

Bernalillo County spokeswoman Tia Bland confirmed the resignation of Jason Jones in a news release Wednesday.

The announcement comes two weeks after Jones was placed on paid administrative leave.

MDC officials have not detailed the reasoning for Jones being placed on leave despite repeated requests over the past few weeks.

Deputy Warden Rosanne Otero Gonzales has been named interim warden, a position she held when the county searched for a replacement when Jones’ predecessor, Greg Richardson, retired.

Jones, a former corrections officer who rose through the ranks to become a warden, was hired in October 2022. He previously served as the warden of the East Hidalgo Detention Center in La Villa, Texas.

Jones took the helm at MDC during a tumultuous time — as the facility faced repeated inmate deaths and growing staff vacancies.

Those issues continued into his tenure and, in February, MDC broke with its for-profit health care provider, for the second time in as many years, as the string of inmate deaths continued. Since 2020, more than two dozen inmates have died or were fatally injured at the facility.

Bernalillo County has since partnered with the University of New Mexico Health Systems to administer health care at the jail.

More recently, the facility has been strained because of a surge in arrests — spurred by the governor’s order combating gun violence — as it continued to have major staffing shortages.

In mid-November, the MDC staff vacancy rate was reported to be around a third.

The increased bookings led the state Corrections Department to transfer some MDC inmates to the Santa Fe penitentiary, which has staffing struggles of its own.