Legislative interim committees are wrapping up their summer studies. One of them examined issues surrounding regional jails and state correctional plans.
Committee members reported on Wednesday, Aug. 31, to the Legislative Task Force on the Incarceration Construction Fund to determine whether the legislature can take action to implement solutions.
State Senator Jim Stalzer chaired the committee that studied the problem of too few jail cells in rural areas. He said his group concluded that the workable solution is to have regional jails in the more populated counties, with less populated counties contracting for space.
He reported that compacts with multiple counties would not work.
“Most county commissions are not willing to put money into a jail that they don’t have any say in running, and most of the sheriffs don’t want some small-county commissioner 50 miles away telling them how to run their jail,” he said.
Stalzer said state statute doesn’t have to be amended to allow for regional jails. The committee found that larger jails already act as regional jails. But he said cost-saving measures could be legislated.
Stalzer said counties reported that transporting prisoners is a significant expense when an inmate goes to court in a different jurisdiction.
“One county said they were currently paying almost half a million dollars a year just in transportation charges,” Stalzer said.
Rep. Hugh Bartels also served on the interim committee. He suggested that much of that transportation cost could be eliminated with teleconferencing court appearances and that the legislature could mandate that solution.
“One of the comments we did hear from one entity was they’d like us to encourage judges to use more remote courts so they wouldn’t have to transport prisoners back and forth,” he said. “It’s pretty well up to the judge if they’ll arraign via video conference.”
The interim committee on regional jails meets one more time, on Sept. 20. The incarceration fund task force will incorporate that committee’s reports into its own findings.
