Bannock County seeks solution to jail overcrowding

The Bannock County jail is another step closer toward what many are calling a ‘much-needed’ expansion.

On Tuesday afternoon, the Bannock County commissioners announced their support of this expansion by deciding to form a citizen’s committee to figure out how to fund it.

This comes after Sheriff Lorin Nielsen approached the county, noting the severe overcrowding issue of the facility. In fact, it keeps growing and has gotten to the point where the facility has gone from generating money for the county, to now costing the county money – and lots of it.

“We have got to move forward,” commissioner Ken Bullock said on Tuesday. “It’s going to cost us every year we go without fixing this.”

Nielsen said the cost this past year for housing inmates was around $160,000 and it’s rising. Now, with only 264 beds and roughly 290 inmates, they have to tack-on the cost of sending inmates out to other facilities across Idaho, who are also facing similar overcrowding issues of their own. Those costs are adding-up.

Although it’s still too early to determine how much money the county will need in order to make this expansion happen, the citizen’s committee is expected to determine how much will be placed on May’s ballot in the form of a bond, and how that money will be raised.

On Monday, the commissioners toured the facility to see just how bad the overcrowding has become.

“Expansion is our only option right now and we fully support this as commissioners,” Bullock added.

Nielsen said at the beginning of this month, they had to empty the minimum-security pod because a plumbing leak required immediate renovation attention. Since there is nowhere to house those inmates, the ones who were able to leave on a work-release program are able to be sent home, monitored, until it’s time to return back to the facility. Nielsen said, this would not be possible with any of the higher-security pods.

“The crime rate is still going up and now we’re seeing a higher rate of females,” Nielsen said. “We only built one section for females when we built this 20 years ago.”

The proposal is to extend the back of the facility so they can at least double the number of beds currently needed.

The commissioners and Sheriff Nielsen said there’s also the concern that has nothing to do with the financial side of the issue, but also the humane aspect.

“There aren’t too many households who aren’t impacted by the jail systems,” Bullock said. “These are our relatives and our own family members. We’re trying to provide good things for people who can help them get out of the spiraling-down trend they’re headed.”

Nielsen said, if this doesn’t pass the May special election, it could be pushed back until the bond is able to appear once again on the November ballot. However, that extra time just means more costs adding-up, with still no money for the county to do anything about it.

He said the worst case scenario – if this does not ever pass, the overcrowding could be so bad, someone could file a lawsuit against the county. If that were to happen, it would then be up to a judge to decide how and where those funds should be allocated. Either way, that money will still come from taxpayers in the end.

Both Nielsen and the commissioners said, it’s critical to not let the issue get to that point, since at least right now voters and the county will still have some say in the matter.

Nielsen said, the expansion is just a matter of asking for the bare minimum. He added, the Sheriff’s Office has not gone before voters to ask for help passing a bond measure in 22 years. That measure helped build the current facility, which has already been paid-off.