Pickens County, sued over jail overcrowding, seeks solutions

PICKENS — From the outside, the Pickens County Detention Center looks quiet and serene, an unassuming appendage off the back end of the Sheriff’s Office headquarters.

Inside, it is teeming with humanity. Inmates are packed elbow to elbow in cells designed for half as many.

On a recent random weekday, there were 195 locked up in a facility designed for 91. That doesn’t count the nine trusties from the state prison system who have been assigned here to help with the cooking and cleaning.

It’s a problem that county officials have been reluctant to take head on for obvious reasons. The price tag for a new jail is up to $25 million, which would require a whopping 55-mill tax increase in a county where tax is four-letter word.

Ralph Guarino, the county's finance director, said if the county were to finance such a project over 20 years, it would add about 4 mills to property tax bills during that time, which would amount to an increase of $16 on a $100,000 home.

Experts from the National Institute of Corrections, a division of the U.S. Department of Justice, told county officials a year and a half ago that overcrowding at the jail has raised the stress levels of both the inmates and staff there to the point where, it's “an event waiting to happen.”

That prediction came true on April 22, when a melee broke out that sent two inmates to the hospital and resulted in assault charges against eight of their cellmates. The incident happened in an area that was rated for 32 prisoners but was holding 65.

One of the injured inmates has filed a lawsuit citing the Justice Department study and saying “the attack…would not have occurred and/or would have been broken up sooner if the Detention Center had not been so overcrowded.”

The lawsuit alleges that the county “has failed to allocate sufficient funding for the operation of the Detention Center,” in violation of state law and the state Constitution.

County Attorney Ken Roper said the county’s insurance carrier is handling the defense of that lawsuit and couldn’t comment on its allegations that overcrowding was a factor in the inmate’s injuries.

But he said the County Council has agreed to start studying a proposal for new jail facilities after the current budget process is over, on July 1.

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And he noted that at its last meeting, the council passed a resolution saying it wouldn’t enter into any capital projects of more than $500,000 unless and until the jail situation is addressed.

County officials have been studying the issue for years and have conceded, unofficially, that a new jail is likely needed – but they haven’t made any moves toward funding the construction of a facility that architects say would cost $23 million to $25 million.

The recommendation from Mosley Architects comes at a time when four County Council seats are up for election, and the council is moving toward adopting a budget with no tax increase for the 12th consecutive year.

“We have reserves, but $25 million will eat your reserves up overnight,” Councilman Neil Smith said.

Building a new jail alone won’t solve the problem, Smith and other county officials say. It’s a systemic issue, they say, involving all facets of the criminal justice system.

Councilman Tom Ponder, who serves on a multi-agency committee the council set up to look for solutions, said shortage of bed space in mental health facilities, backlogs in the movement of cases through the court system, and overloading from the municipal courts in the county are among the factors that keep the jail overcrowded.

“We can build a 500-bed facility, but if we don’t get some of the programmatic issues straightened out it won’t be enough,” he said.

Figures from the 2014 Department of Justice study bear that out.

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Fewer prisoners were booked into the Pickens County Detention Center in 2013 than in 2000, the study found, but it’s more overcrowded now than it was then.

And that’s after doubling the size of the jail in 2006.

The reason is that prisoners are spending twice as long behind bars now as they were then, the study showed. In 2004, the average length of time people spent in the detention center was 10 days. In 2014, it was 24.5 days.

Now, it’s 34 days, according to Lt. Kristy Leopard, jail administrator.

Inmates arrested on misdemeanor charges shouldn’t be spending more than 30 days in jail, she said.

Close quarters

To say that inmates at the Pickens County Detention Center are living in close quarters would be to understate the situation.

Cell blocks A-F are about the size of a typical bedroom, but they have no windows and are secured by a door that looks like one for a freezer locker.

Leopard heaves open the heavy metal door to reveal inmates, most of them standing, elbow to elbow, biding their time.

Each cell block has six individual cells. On a recent afternoon, Cell block A had 17 inhabitants. It has had as many as 24, Leopard said.

Pallets are laid out in the floor, scattered around a picnic-style metal table. There’s one toilet, one sink, and a shower stall in the corner.

Inmates are eager to show how crowded they are. They also point to mold in the shower stall and grumble about the food. One says he has lost 20 pounds in three weeks.

Other cell blocks are similarly stacked with people, including one for females that has 12 beds and 32 inmates.

One of the inmates in that mass of female prisoners is Suzanna Louise Simpson, who is charged with murdering her two young children and attempting to murder her husband. She has been awaiting trial for more than three years.

Thirteenth Circuit Solicitor Walt Wilkins said she has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity and is scheduled for trial in June. Hers is the oldest case in the jail, he said.

Inmates also are routinely housed in the “arraignment room,” which is designated for magistrates to hold bond hearings, and for mental health counseling sessions.

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Last September, an inmate who had been put there “due to conflicts with other inmates,” was found dead, hanging from a bed sheet suspended from a vent, according to an investigative report done by the State Law Enforcement Division. The death was ruled a suicide, and the solicitor determined no criminal behavior was involved.

Three inmates were locked into the arraignment room one recent day.

Of the 200 inmates who were in the Pickens County Detention Center on May 17, 68 were not Solicitor’s Office cases, Wilkins said, and 132 were on his docket. The cases not his responsibility range from child support violations to offenses that go to municipal magistrates, he said.

His six lawyers in Pickens County handle between 1,500 and 2,000 cases a year, or about 450-500 cases each, he said. The national standard is around 200 cases a year per lawyer, he said.

“So out of 2,000 cases, I’ve got 132 in jail – that’s pretty good,” Wilkins said.

Of his cases, 22 had been there over 180 days, and of those, up to 30 percent are mental health cases, or are awaiting forensic test results, he said.

“We’re trying to move them as quickly as we possibly can,” Wilkins said.

About two-thirds of the inmates in the detention center are in minimum security, based on factors including the severity of their alleged crime and their behavior record during any previous incarcerations, according to Leopard.

Multi-faceted problem

Defense attorneys can file a speedy trial motion if they think things are moving too slowly, but Wilkins said he’s received fewer than five of those since he took office in 2011.

The reasons the jail is overcrowded are “multi-faceted,” Wilkins said, but one of the reasons is obvious, he said: “The jail just may be too small.”

Sheriff Rick Clark, who is responsible for the jail, said he’s been working to reduce the average length of stay during the time since he took office in 2013, starting with increasing the amount of time available for taking guilty pleas.

Judge Perry H. Gravely now is now one or two days a month to taking pleas, which has helped moves cases through the system, Clark said.

He’s also been trying to work with the municipal judges in setting “reasonable” bonds. Many cases coming from the municipalities have bonds set for multiple misdemeanors that add up to more than the prisoners can afford, so they end up staying in jail waiting for their court date for as long as their sentences would have been, he said.

The Sheriff’s Office is working to set up a video conferencing system with the Public Defender’s Office which could help speed up the legal process, Clark said.

Home monitoring is another way to keep nonviolent offenders out of the jail but confined, he said. The cost is $8 to $10 a day and has to be paid for by the inmates, many of whom can’t afford it, but it’s less than the $35 a day it costs to keep them in the jail.

“That’s one of the options we’re going to look at,” Clark said.

In addition, the Sheriff’s Office just got a grant from the state Department of Alcohol and Other Drug Abuse Services that will help provide more mental health counseling for inmates, he said.

“The mental health issue is something that we’re constantly battling,” he said. “The state has cut mental health to dangerous levels and there are people in here who need professional psychiatric help.”

More than half of the inmates generally are incarcerated as a result of some type of mental health problem, many of them drug related, the sheriff said. Eight out of 10 have been there before, jailers said.

But no matter what else is done, a new detention center must be built, Clark said. He said he’s glad to see the county moving toward recognizing that.

“I’m encouraged that we got a professional to come in and look and start planning for our future and make sure we do this right this time,” he said.

Ponder said he thinks the county will need to build a new facility, but he doesn’t believe a new jail will solve the problem.

He pointed out that Oconee County just built a new detention center and had a hostage takeover there soon after it opened.

“I don’t think we have to totally fix the system and then build a facility,” he said. “I think we can be working on the problems while a facility is being designed.”

It’s something that Ponder, who plans to step down from the council after his term is up later this year, would like to see begin before he leaves office.

“It’s not all the solicitor’s fault, it’s not all mental health’s fault, it’s not all the sheriffs fault,” he said. “It’s a joint venture and it’s going to take cooperation of all these agencies.

“It’s a doable thing.”

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