Weather | Sports | Forums | Comics | Classifieds | Calendar | Movies
SHANNON COLAVECCHIO-VAN SICKLERWith Hillsborough's population boom and tougher sentencing, more inmates are coming in than the county can handle.
TAMPA - Hillsborough County's Falkenburg and Orient Road jails were built to hold 64 inmates in each dormitory.
But in recent months, as detention deputies continue to book record numbers of people, they've been forced to put as many as 96 inmates in each pod.
That means adding several rubbery blue mattresses on the floor as well as a second deputy who has to be paid overtime. The county now uses at least three dozen overtime deputies a day in its jails.
"It was never like that in the past," said Col. David Parrish, who runs Hillsborough's jails. "And unfortunately, I don't see any light at the end of the tunnel. At this rate, we're going to spend $3.5-million in overtime this year."
Detention officials have added beds in recent years, and they plan additional construction. But they say that won't be enough against the recent tide of arrests resulting from state get-tough initiatives like 10-20-Life.
Faced with the latest mandate from the Florida Department of Corrections - an order to round up probation violators and stick them in county jails while their cases go through the court system - Hillsborough Sheriff Cal Henderson said his office will seek commissioners' permission to build tens of millions of dollars in additional inmate space years sooner than scheduled.
Today, county commissioners will hear a report on the latest jail population projections, which show that the current construction schedule isn't enough to keep up with inmate growth.
Even before the state probation push, population projections showed the county's jails will not have enough capacity in years to come.
"The bottom line is, we're going to have to hit the commission up," Henderson said. "We just didn't project we would grow this fast, and we need more beds."
On Aug. 15, 4,785 people were housed in the county jails, an all-time daily high and 14 percent more than they were built to hold. Four days earlier, 283 people were booked into the jails in a 24-hour period, another record.
According to Parrish, an increase in the county's population contributes to the rise in inmates, because a certain percentage of people who move into Hillsborough will commit crimes.
But he said the inmate boom in recent years is mostly due to legislation like the three-strikes law and 10-20-Life, which provide longer sentences for three-time violent felons and gun-toting criminals in Florida.
"The biggest thing is the change in philosophy of the Department of Corrections with the sentencing guidelines," said Hillsborough Judge James V. Dominguez, chairman of the county's Public Safety Coordinating Council (PSCC). "People are staying in jail longer because there's no incentive for them to end these cases earlier with a plea."
Once a defendant enters a plea, he is sentenced and often shipped off to state prison.
"Why plead to a third strike (with a mandatory or lengthy sentence) when you can just wait a little longer in (county) jail and let the jury decide?" Dominguez said.
Parrish said the most recent and significant hit came in the wake of two high-profile murder cases this year.
Troy Victorino, a 27-year-old who spent eight of the past 11 years in prison, was charged earlier this month in the slayings of six people in Deltona. Four probation officials lost their jobs because they didn't seek a warrant for Victorino within 48 hours of learning he'd been arrested in July on a battery charge in a separate case.
In February, Joseph P. Smith was charged with abducting and killing 11-year-old Carlie Brucia in Sarasota. Smith was accused of violating his probation twice in the months before the murder, but he was never jailed.
The public was outraged that both men remained free despite probation violations.
Recently, corrections officials responded by ordering probation officers to immediately arrest certain violators: those on probation now charged with an additional felony, and those on probation who have a violent past who are now accused of violating probation.
Detention officials in Hillsborough and Pinellas say they're already feeling the impact.
"It's always a challenge for us," said Pinellas sheriff's spokeswoman Marianne Pasha."What the Legislature or corrections department does affects the system all the way through."
In the months since Carlie Brucia's murder in Sarasota, the number of people arrested in Pinellas on probation violations steadily rose, up as much as 27 percent from the 124 arrested in February, records show.
Of 283 people booked into Hillsborough jails on Aug. 11, 47 were arrested solely on probation violation charges. This year to date, the jails have seen 4,413 people booked solely on probation violation charges, up 14 percent from all of 2003.
On average, those arrested on probation violation charges stayed in jail for 28 days, compared to the average stay of 24 days for those booked on other charges.
"It's not good," said Jim Gross, special projects manager for the Hillsborough detention department. "And it's only going to get worse. The case in Deltona will have a far-reaching impact."
Hillsborough's jail system now has room for 4,190 inmates, with most of that space in the Falkenburg and Orient Road jails.
The next phase of jail construction, budgeted at $50-million, is scheduled to be complete by 2008. It will add 768 beds to the Falkenburg Road jail.
The project will bring the jail system's total capacity to 4,958, Gross said. But according to the latest projections from the PSCC, the jail system will need 5,576 beds by 2008.
Two additional phases at Falkenburg are scheduled to be built by 2013, though the county hasn't set aside $37-million needed for it, Gross said. The additions would bring the jail system's capacity to 5,726 by 2013. Projections show the jails by then will need 6,474 beds.
The PSCC adopted those projections at a meeting in July, and they will be presented to county commissioners today, Gross said. The projections are given to the county annually, and commissioners don't have to take any action.
But the sheriff said he'll have to ask commissioners to speed up planned construction, if not now, then when budget planning begins next year.
"The jail needs to grow," he said. "No doubt about it."
The space crunch comes as county real estate officials negotiate the purchase of 190 acres behind the Falkenburg Road jail, a chunk of which would be used for jail expansion, said county Real Estate Director Mike Kelly. There's a request in the upcoming year's proposed budget for $10-million to cover the land purchase, Kelly said.
Pinellas detention officials aren't facing the same overcrowding issues, mostly because unlike Hillsborough, Pinellas isn't growing in population.
But Pinellas is building a $30-million, 432-bed medical facility, its first such facility to serve inmates under one roof. It is scheduled to open by late next year.
Even if Hillsborough commissioners approve the millions needed to speed up jail construction, building will take time. In the meantime, Parrish is looking into other, more immediate measures to free up beds.
One option is a GPS monitoring system that gives judges an alternative to jailing people arrested on lesser, nonviolent crimes.
Parrish said that on average, 1,000 inmates who have bail set at $1,000 or less remain in jail 48 hours or more anyway, since they can't afford to post it.
Pinellas has a GPS tracking program for people arrested and awaiting trial. Defendants are released with a GPS bracelet rather than left to sit in jail. Pinellas also has a program for about 1,500 arrestees who are released on their own recognizance but must report daily to one of 10 detectives, said Pinellas sheriff's spokesman Tim Goodman. Gross, of Hillsborough's detention department, said Parrish is looking into hiring a retired judge to deal with people arrested on probation violation charges.
"The idea is to move them through the system faster so they're not taking up beds," Gross said. "Because it's a lot cheaper to pay one judge than to keep building more space."
Shannon Colavecchio-Van Sickler can be reached at svansickler@sptimes.com or 813 226-3373.