Prison overcrowding reaches critical point

With overcrowding in Nebraska state prisons reaching a critical point, state officials are seeking ways to reform the system.

According to a report by the Omaha World-Herald, Nebraska state prisons are currently resting near 151 percent capacity.

As of June 30, the nine major state prison facilities throughout the state housed 4,796 inmates. However, they are only designed to hold 3,175.

Other states such as Kansas, Texas, Colorado, and South Carolina, which have faced the same problem of overcrowding, have greatly reduced their populations by diverting more drug offenders into treatment programs instead of prison.

According to the World-Herald, Nebraska Senators such as Heath Mello, who serves as chairman of the Appropriations Committee, have taken notice of other states’ reforms and are working them into the new plan to reduce overcrowding in the Cornhusker state.

“Right now we’re looking at successful models at other states and trying to educate legislators,” said Mello. “If we don’t come up with something, the only other option is to build a state prison, which is something no one wants to do.”

A new prison facility would cost the state $110 million, according to a report by the Journal Star. Stacking that cost with the $29,000 a year it takes to house an inmate, Nebraska Senator Ben Ashford, chairman of the Legislature’s Judiciary Committee, believes that the state should take a closer look at the inmates currently incarcerated and implement a different approach between higher level offenses and non-violent lower-level crimes.

“We’re incarcerating people way beyond what is necessary for public safety,” Ashford said. “We have to develop a new strategy.”

Approximately 42 percent of Nebraska’s inmates are in prison for more severe offenses such as first-degree murder, second-degree murder, manslaughter, first-degree assault, first-degree sexual assault, first-degree sexual assault of a child and robbery while the remaining 58 percent are serving time for lower level sex and drug offenses.

The overcrowding at the state level is also trickling down into the counties, with Nebraska county officials such as Kimball County Sheriff Harry Gillway attempting to find other places to hold their inmates.

“We’ve had to make changes. For so long, we were past capacity. We’re limited to the number of people we can have in our jail. For one, it’s a grandfathered jail, and two, the State Jail Standards Commission will only allow us to have so many people. We’ve had to put people in Scottsbluff, North Platte, Lexington, and that is a cost to the county,” Gillway said.

The overcrowding at the state level has even led to Kimball County having to put an end to a previous agreement with Cheyenne County where Kimball County would take the female inmates in the Cheyenne County facilities, due to both the fact that Kimball County is one of the few with female jailers in the area and state law which prohibits male jailers from watching female inmates, according to Kimball County Jail Administrator Linda Williams.

“Cheyenne County would bring their females over and take our males. Between theirs with everything going on over there and us being very heavy, we’ve had to discontinue that now. Say we have six males, they don’t have room for six additional males. We all have to take ours to Scottsbluff and pay $60 a day for them to be held,” Williams said.

Though many solutions have been bounced around at the state level including an increase in sending inmates into drug treatment programs, this would do little to help out on the county level as county facilities are only equipped to hold inmates on a short-term basis.

“The county is on a level where we only have short timers. We’re not really into rehabilitation, because we don’t really have the time. If an inmate requests to see an AA member, an NA member, a counselor, or a priest or minister, we set that up. Other than that we really don’t have time for the programs,” Williams said.

Another possible solution being discussed that could potentially be useful at the county level would be putting inmates in custody for lesser crimes on house arrest and having them monitored by the authorities.

“We haven’t really implemented it so it will be new for us, but we’re hoping to do it for medical. We have our inmates who maybe have a medical problem. Once they’re in our jail, they can get high in our medical cost. So we can put an ankle bracelet on them and let them stay home to their comfort and to their cost and have their medical needs met at home,” Williams said.

Though state officials are scrambling to find alternatives to building a new correctional facility due to the high cost, Gillway believes that putting a new facility in the western part of the state would alleviate many of the problems that smaller counties face with the high cost of transporting inmates to and from facilities in Lincoln and be beneficial to the state as a whole in the future.

“I think it would be very beneficial to either get a new facility in the western part of the state where they can house inmates. It would be good for the economy. It would be good for employees to good paying jobs with benefits, and also it would be less of a cost for counties in the western part of Nebraska,” Gillway said.

Gillway also backs the idea of potentially setting up a regional jail in the Panhandle, believing that it is a necessity due to the growing problems of housing inmates.

“We have right now enough need for another regional jail in this area. Perhaps maybe even Kimball has to step up and consider that. Even if we did it on our own, from what I’ve seen, there is definitely a need for at least another 50 to 100 beds just for the Panhandle,” Gillway said.

Though it is still up in the air what exactly will be decided at the state level, it is becoming more clear that steps need to be taken soon. State facilities are projected to reach 171 percent capacity by 2020.