Should the county build an addition on the Missoula County jail, a $12 million expense? Or should it forgo $1 million in annual revenue from the Montana Department of Corrections and reclaim the 144 beds where the DOC now houses some of its inmates?
Those are just a few of the questions posed to County Commissioner Jean Curtiss at a Thursday afternoon meeting on overcrowding at the Mullan Road facility. Commissioners Michele Landquist and Bill Carey weren’t in attendance.
But just how crowded is the jail? Sheriff’s Capt. Jason Kowalski explained that inmates with mental health and addiction issues are consistently placed in cells where they shouldn’t be housed, and maximum security is full all the time. He said one day in September, the jail was 15 women over the 45-bed limit.
“It’s stressing me out beyond belief,” Kowalski said.
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In the past, Missoula County relied on other counties to house the overflow, but that’s not an option now. According to Kowalski and other jail officials, overcrowding conditions are the norm in every county in Montana, and at state facilities too. Montana’s jails are packed to the limit and simply too full to handle Missoula’s consistent overflow, they said.
But there’s also a question of nonviolent criminals getting jail time for minor crimes like a probation violation or driving on a suspended license. Kowalski said that’s a big problem, and both city and county courts are incarcerating petty criminals.
“Those cases are there where a transient has a $50 fine and can’t pay it,” Curtiss said.
Not so, said Missoula County Attorney Fred Van Valkenburg.
“Ninety-eight percent of the people who are in jail are there because they need to be,” he said.
If people are going to jail for nonviolent, minor crimes, the city – not the county – is sending them there, he said.
Van Valkenburg called for legislative reform limiting the city’s ability to charge someone with a state crime, but other people at the meeting suggested the county start by reviewing its contracts with the state.
According to Curtiss, the state offered the county $5 million to build the jail in the late 1990s in exchange for the 144 beds used by DOC inmates. The state also pays the jail about $1 million per year to house those inmates – which is a significant piece of the jail’s budget, Curtiss said. If the county reneges on that contract, local taxpayers would have to make up the difference and that creates another problem of where to house those inmates.
“There’s nowhere to put them,” she said. “It’s not something you can say, you have 90 days to leave.”
But she said that while Chief Civil Deputy County Attorney Marnie McClain reexamines the contract, the county will also look at a few quick fixes, such as offering training to substitute judges about jail diversion programs and examining jail alternative programs, like community service or work-release.
She said adding onto the physical structure of the jail is the absolute last resort because, as Sheriff Carl Ibsen put it Thursday, “If you build it, they will come.”
Another commission meeting on overcrowding at the jail is tentatively set for next month.
