ACLU lawyer tells Monroe County officials: 300 beds for new jail is not enough
Leading up to a Sept. 16 public hearing on an increase to the jail LIT (local income tax), ACLU attorney Ken Falk has sent a letter to Monroe County officials telling them that 300 beds for a new jail in Monroe County is “clearly an inadequate number.”
Falk is the same attorney who filed the 2008 lawsuit against Monroe County on behalf of Monroe County jail prisoners, about overcrowded conditions at the jail.
Falk’s Sept. 9 letter was a reaction to the proposal that a 300-bed facility would be sufficient to handle Monroe County’s future needs—an idea that has been floated by some Monroe County electeds.
The planned size of the new jail will be a big factor for county councilors as they decide the rate increase for the jail LIT. The advertised rate for the hearing would increase it to 0.2 percent. The council’s vote on the tax rate won’t be taken on Sept. 16—but could come at any time after that.
Falk’s analysis relies on the notion of “functional capacity,” as did Monroe County sheriff Ruben Marté, when he gave a presentation to county councilors and county commissioners in July.
Cited in Falk’s letter are two recent cases involving county jails in the state of Indiana, where the courts relied on the idea that a jail’s functional capacity is just 80 percent of beds in the facility.
Falk’s letter first does the math on the 80-percent standard: “Applying the 80-percent limit to the 300-bed rated capacity that apparently has been proposed for the new jail, the facility would be overcrowded at 240.”
The letter then compares that figure to current population figures based on the daily reports that Falk receives: “On today’s date, September 9, there are 251 people in the Monroe County Jail.”
The total capacity of the Monroe County jail, based on the settlement agreement from the 2008 lawsuit, is 278.
In Marté’s July presentation, he stressed the idea that there has to be enough room in a jail to house prisoners in different classifications: minimum, medium and maximum security prisoners.
But in addition to the three basic levels of security, other special considerations can require separation of inmates from the general population, Marté said at the time. That includes those who need protection from other inmates, sex offenders, or inmates who have medical needs that require frequent attention or mental health issues.
The same idea is echoed by Falk in his Sept. 9 letter: “There has to be sufficient space for classification of prisoners.”
Marté is looking at 500 beds or more as the number of beds needed in a new facility.
Several months ago, the county council weighed in with a policy document that includes a 400-bed limit on the new jail facility.
If the 400-bed figure were analyzed as the needed functional capacity, that would translate into a raw bed count of 500.
Falk’s letter does not make a specific recommendation for a bed count beyond saying that 300 is clearly not enough. Falk puts it like this: “As I have stressed repeatedly, I am not in a position to make specific suggestions to Monroe County as to what to do to provide a constitutional jail.”
Falk continues: “[G]iven the population pressures on the jail, it makes no sense at all to build a new jail that cannot safely house even its current population, let alone an increase in population.”
Falk’s letter raises the specter of future court action in connection with the 2008 lawsuit, if the size of the new jail is not adequate: “[I]f the final plan of the County is to build a new jail that would be overcrowded on the day that it opened, then I will seek a hearing with the Court as provided by paragraph 23 of the private settlement agreement to discuss if further steps should be taken in court.”
Even though the lawsuit was filed in 2008, the Monroe County jail operates under a settlement agreement that has been extended several times.
The current effort towards constructing a new jail, stems from two reports from consultants hired to study the local criminal justice system. The reports were delivered three years ago, in July 2021.
The reports from the two consultants—RJS Justice Services and Inclusivity Strategic Consulting—highlighted a number of challenges in Monroe County’s criminal justice system.
The key conclusion from the RJS study, which prompted the start to the recent effort was: “The jail facility is failing and cannot ensure consistent and sustainable provision of constitutional rights of incarcerated persons.”
