Matthew T. Mangino
GateHouse Media
June 2, 2017
Local jails are driving the steady flow of incarcerated
people in this country. Much is made of non-violent offenders serving long
sentences in federal prison, or how mandatory minimum sentences are clogging
America’s prisons. The fact is, one-third of all inmates are held in local
jails.
The difference between a jail and a prison is simple. Jails
are run by local government bodies for short-sentences, often the result of
minor offenses, and pre-trial detention. Prisons are for long sentences, for
serious crimes and operated by states or the federal government.
According to a new study released by the Prison Policy
Institute, the 11 million people who go to jail each year are there for brief,
but life-altering, periods of time. Most are released in days, or hours, after
their arrest, but others are held for months or more. Only one in three people
in jails have been convicted.
I have used this column to lament the ridiculousness of
detaining people who cannot afford minimal bail. Those people sit in jail for
months only to have the charges dismissed or are released for time served --
often after serving much longer sentences than would have been meted out if a
plea agreement had been negotiated sooner.
Beyond bail there are an increasing number of jails that run
a side-business of renting jail cells to other government agencies. The jail is
looked at in some communities as a money maker. For one, it employs local
residents and that employment helps churn residual businesses in the community.
In addition, county officials charge a fee for out-of-county or out-of-state
inmates and even immigration detainees.
That money is used to balance local budgets. In more than
half of U.S. states, about 10 percent of the people in jail are not
“traditional jail inmates.” They are people being held under contract for
federal or state agencies. According to the Prison Policy Initiative, the
systematic renting of jail cells to other jurisdictions has changed the
priorities and the policies of jail officials. If the county is making money,
an overcrowded jail is not a bad thing.
In Pennsylvania, state prisoners who violate their parole
are not immediately returned to state prison. Due to some creative legislation,
parole violators are housed in county jails for up to 6 months and then
returned to the community. The state pays the county to house the parole
violators and in turn the state can boast that they have less men and women in
state prisons. Mind you, not less prisoners, but less prisoners in state
facilities.
The problem goes beyond Pennsylvania. States like Alabama,
Kansas, Kentucky, Mississippi, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Dakota, Tennessee
and Utah are in the business of renting space to federal authorities.
Louisiana has mastered the “for profit public prison.”
According to the Prison Policy Institute, Louisiana has largely outsourced the
construction and operation of state prisons to individual parishes. Fifty-two
percent of the state’s prison population is housed under contract with local
jails; and as a result two out of three people held in Louisiana jails are not
“traditional jail inmates.”
The federal government is gobbling up local jail cells as
well. According to the Prison Policy Initiative, the U.S. Marshals Service
rents about 26,200 cells each year, mostly to hold federal pre-trial detainees
in locations where there is no federal detention center. Immigration and
Customs Enforcement also rents about 15,700 cells each year for people facing
deportation.
If filling local jails becomes a cash cow for local
municipalities, the future is predictable and terrifying. Local government
officials have a financial incentive to fill their jails -- regardless of the
toll on communities, families and individuals.
Matthew T. Mangino is of counsel with Luxenberg, Garbett,
Kelly & George P.C. His book “The Executioner’s Toll, 2010” was released by
McFarland Publishing. You can reach him at www.mattmangino.com and follow him
on Twitter at @MatthewTMangino.
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