Lots of room to grow

County jail is expanding, but population isn't ... for now

By Robert Behre

The Post and Courier

Sunday, April 19, 2009

Alan Hawes
The Post and Courier

The walls are up on the addition to the Charleston County Detention Center and work is under way inside the building, which will be attached to the older facility (left) on Leeds Avenue in North Charleston.

Current jail

Capacity: 661

Sq. footage: 189,251

Built: 1966, 1993

Staffing: 411

New jail

Capacity: 2,161

Sq. footage: 512,251

Built: 2010, 1993

Staffing: Approx. 460

Inmates

Month          Inmates

Jan. 2007      1,723

Feb. 2007      1,705

March 2007   1,715

April 2007     1,709

May 2007     1,735

June 2007     1,791

July 2007     1,875

Aug. 2007     1,860

Sept. 2007     1,870

Oct. 2007     1,863

Nov. 2007     1,732

Dec. 2007     1,632

Jan. 2008     1,648

Feb. 2008     1,670

March 2008     1,653

April 2008     1,639

May 2008     1,679

June 2008     1,702

July 2008     1,748

Aug. 2008     1,755

Sept. 2008     1,761

Oct. 2008     1,751

Nov. 2008     1,652

Dec. 2008     1,634

Jan. 2009     1,589

Feb. 2009     1,607

March 2009     1,643

April 2009     1,691

Note: The monthly averages include inmates in the main county jail, the work release facility and juvenile detention.

Special report

To read the Post and Courier's special report, Locked Down: Inside the Charleston County Jail, go to postandcourier.com/jail

As he paces the roof of Charleston County's $100.7 million, four-story jail taking shape off Leeds Avenue, Sheriff's Office Chief Deputy Mitch Lucas seems pleased that he probably won't need the floor immediately below him.

At least not for a while.

Lucas, the jail's administrator, said that when the new facility opens in February, he doesn't expect to fill any of the 256 beds on the fourth floor.

This is partly because the jail was designed to meet the county's needs until 2025, and if the trends of the past two decades continue, those beds will be needed soon enough.

But the empty fourth floor also reflects the success that court officials have had speeding up trials and hearings on jail inmates facing lesser charges. Since 2007, the inmate population essentially has stayed flat.

As a result, next year's ribbon-cutting will be a markedly different affair than the most recent jail expansion. When the main 661-bed jail opened in 1993, it was overcrowded on the first day. The situation has only gotten worse, stressing out inmates and detention officers alike.

Asked what it will be like not only to have a jail that's not overcrowded but one that actually might have a few hundred extra beds to spare, Lucas paused.

"Nobody that works for the Charleston County Sheriff's Office can tell you what that's like," he said. "We've never had it before."

Minimizing stays

When County Council awarded the design-build contract for the new jail in late 2007, few argued about whether it was needed.

Not only was the jail system, which includes work release and juvenile detention facilities, handling several hundred more inmates than it was designed to handle, but the population had surged from about 1,200 inmates in 2002 to more than 1,700 by 2007.

But since then, it's plateaued and even dipped a little.

Lucas noted that the nation's jail numbers have been going down for the past year or two but said the county often has bucked that trend.

Public Defender Ashley Pennington said the county's crime numbers aren't down, but his office is working more efficiently with Ninth Circuit Solicitor Scarlett Wilson's office and the courts to move criminal cases, especially minor ones, more quickly through the system.

"When we have a murder case scheduled, we also have other cases behind it that are moving," Wilson said, "so we're not just trying a case a week. We're trying more cases than we have in the past."

About six years ago, the county formed a special working group of prosecutors, public defenders, judges and clerks who discuss ways to ease overcrowding. Pennington said that when he took the job in January 2007, one of his top goals was to create a fast-moving case unit for easier cases and probation violations.

"The jail overcrowding really makes staying in jail much harder on the inmates themselves, so it serves our clients," he said. "If they are in limbo for a long time just packed in like sardines, it can become intolerable for everyone, the staff and the inmates."

Lucas said those efforts have helped.

"Seventy-five percent of your inmates get out within 72 hours. Most people get out of jail fairly quickly," Lucas said. "If they're going to get a PR (personal recognizance) bond, what's the point of keeping them all night?"

Still, possible budget cuts and loss of prosecutor or public defender positions could erode that efficiency and cause the jail's numbers — and costs — to climb back up.

"I'm desperately afraid we're going to see the twin problem of a reduced budget leading to reduced staff and then to a big problem related to jail overcrowding," Pennington said. "The system relies on as prompt a movement of cases as you can do."

A hulking shell

The design-build team of MB Kahn Construction Co. of Columbia and Moseley Architects of Charlotte began work on the new jail in March 2008, and the main concrete walls and floors have been assembled, forming a gray shell that's the largest building in this part of North Charleston.

The 332,000-square-foot building, set on some 1,500 pilings, is longer than a football field and has about one-third as much space inside as Citadel Mall.

Lucas said he not only is pleased to see the new beds but also a superior design he hopes will allow the jail to function much more efficiently. About 100 detention staffers conferred with architects to try to get the design just right.

The booking and processing rooms, infirmary, kitchen, laundry and staff break rooms, are in much more centralized, logical locations on the first floor.

Currently, those functions are scattered about the old campus, part of which will be upgraded in a second phase of jail expansion set to be done in August 2010. The oldest part of the current jail, about 60,000 square feet, will be vacated and available for reuse by other county functions.

Above the new jail's first floor are 20 of the 21 new housing units, each about the size of a small grocery store and capable of housing 64 inmates in an open floor plan, one that can be supervised by a single detention officer.

"It's the teacher-in-the-classroom concept," Lucas said. "Nobody screws up while the teacher is in the classroom."

Each of the 8,800-square-foot units has a unisex design, which essentially means they have no urinals and can house either males or females. Each will have touchscreens so inmates can order from the commissary or can get more toilet paper without filling out forms like they do now.

Lucas said the new jail beds will be used for better-behaved inmates and that each housing unit has an enclosed space to put anyone who acts out.

Also, the new jail will have video visitation monitors and other technology that will allow family members, friends and attorneys to visit with inmates in their cell blocks.

The more dangerous inmates — and those who don't behave in the new jail — will be assigned to the existing jail, which will receive new electronic locks, refurbished elevators and more cameras for video visitation.

Lucas said that while the new jail might be rated with almost four times as many beds as the current jail, he only expects to need about 51 more staff positions to run it. The jail currently has 411 employees.

The opening date of the jail remains in flux. While construction is on schedule, County Council must wrestle with how much more it can afford for the new jail in its upcoming 2009-2010 budget.

"This costs $100 million," Lucas said, gesturing toward the concrete walls. "The lifetime cost (of running the jail) is $1 billion. What we're doing today will save us money 20 years from now."

Reach Robert Behre at rbehre@postandcourier.com or 937-5771.