Update on Prisoners...

State prisons may use county jails

Steven Elbow — 11/08/2007 11:31 am

As Dane County pulls its inmates back from Winnebago and Sauk counties, the state Department of Corrections is hoping to use the newly available space to ease its own overcrowding problems.

The state is currently working with those counties, as well as Bayfield and Juneau counties, to use available beds as part of its ongoing effort to house a growing prison population.

Dane County currently pays Sauk and Winnebago counties about $1 million a year each to house a total of about 120 inmates a day. But Dane County Sheriff Dave Mahoney plans to bring those inmates home early next year as measures to open up beds at the Dane County Jail go into place.

The stakes on both sides are high: The state Department of Corrections is operating with 5,000 inmates more than it has space for, and counties say they need the revenue that housing state inmates can provide.

The state is still dealing with the result of its decision to bring 5,000 prisoners who were being housed in other states back to Wisconsin. The last were brought home in May 2005.

The Department of Corrections already houses about 600 inmates in 15 county lockups, paying the counties $51.46 per inmate per day. The recently passed state budget allows for 1,242 county jail beds for state prisoners.

Winnebago County Sheriff Michael Brooks said profits from the deal should bring the county about $30 a day per inmate, but he and the state have yet to reach a solid agreement.

Brooks added, however, that the growth of his own jail population is likely to cut into the profits by taking away rentable beds.

Dane County to Remove Inmates From Winnebgo County Jails

The OshNW has this story today:

County will no longer house Dane County inmates

By Jennifer K. Woldt
of The Northwestern

A canceled contract for housing out of county inmates will result in Winnebago County losing more than $1 million in annual revenue.

Winnebago County Sheriff Michael Brooks learned earlier this week that Dane County will not renew its contract with Winnebago County to house approximately 60 of their inmates at the Winnebago County Jail.

The contract called for Dane County inmates to be held at the Winnebago County facility at a rate of $51 per day, Brooks said, which brings in about $1.3 million in revenue to the county. Brooks said the removal of Dane County inmates will happen in a "phased out" manner.

At the last meeting, I discussed the possibility of this, in the context of this Dane County Press release:

Falk, Mahoney Agree: More Public Safety, Less Cost in 2008 Dane County Budget

Some of the new deputies will be used to staff the expanded use of the electronic monitoring program from the current 40 to 60 inmates to 200 inmates. “This was one of the recommendations included in the Institute for Law and Policy Planning (ILLP) audit by Alan Kalmanoff,” Falk said of the report which stressed modernizing some of the county’s policies to promote more public safety and cost efficiencies.

With the expansion in electronic monitoring and several other key proposals which hold inmates more accountable than does the Huber Center, Falk said the county will reduce its costs of shipping inmates to other counties from more than $2 million to $150,000.

This could make a big dent in the budget. And it shows that we need a comprehensive study of the jail needs.

I propose that it be conducted as a joint effort between the offices of the Sheriff and the County Executive.

We need to make sure there is more than one set of eyes looking at the numbers. It may well be that we need to expand jail space, but I want to know that we are looking at a comprehensive picture of the situation, both from a view of jail needs and the current political reality of WI budgeting.