Jail overcrowding and inadequate facilities for inmates with
mental-health needs has spurred talk of a possible new Dane County
jail.

Last week, the Justice System Space Needs Sheltering Committee
gave the highest marks to a new multipurpose jail-facility proposal
after Sheriff Gary Hamblin said it would help alleviate the current
pressures Dane County jails are facing.

Committee members looked at four options to deal with jail
concerns. They discussed adding an additional three floors to the
current facility, located at the top of the Public Safety Building;
creating more jail cells in the City-County Building once the new
courthouse is finished; building a new work-release/Alcohol and
Other Drug Abuse facility; and leaving the situation as it is and
hoping it will work out.

Hamblin’s suggestion for the construction of a new
work-release/AODA facility will include more space for inmates with
mental-health needs and also for those with maximum-security
needs.

“The planning process is underway,” Hamblin said.
“Our first goal is to get an expert in the field to give Dane
County a direction to work in.”

The planning process will include hiring a professional jail
planner who will look at population growth and changes in Dane
County.

Other factors that will be considered include the maximization
of space for inmates as well as maximization of a limited
staff.

“In the 2002-2003 year, Dane County spent $1 million
housing inmates in other counties, and for the 2004 year, we spent
another $1 million housing inmates in other counties,”
Hamblin said. “This $2 million will continue to go up because
Dane County is one of the fastest-growing counties in the
state.”

Hamblin said population increases affect crime factors and
“not everyone moving here is free of problems.”

The Dane County jail system currently offers 15 jail-diversion
programs, which provide programs that deal with issues like alcohol
and substance abuse. Because of the population increase, treatment
alone will not solve the issues of overcrowding or provide proper
care for inmates with other needs, Hamblin said.

Ald. Austin King, District 8, said he fully supports increasing
the availability of abuse and treatment programs instead of putting
millions of dollars into the construction of a new jail
facility.

“My preference has always been to spend money on programs
that help people versus jailing them,” King said. “If
we’re going to spend money, we need to spend it on AODA
programs, not on increasing jails.”

The cost of the jail is controversial, as many Dane County
inmates are sent to other facilities like the new Sauk County
jail.

But while overcrowding alone may be a primary issue, the proper
care for inmates with mental-health needs is also an important
aspect to consider, Hamblin said.

“I look at the cells for inmates with serious
mental-health issues and they are not appropriate or
adequate,” Hamblin said. “Most national studies say
15-17 percent of inmates have serious mental-health issues, and we
do not have adequate space for them.”

Dane County operates three adult jail facilities with a designed
capacity of 942 inmates. The average daily population in 2003 was
1,049, or 107 inmates over the designed capacity, according to The
Capital Times.

The increased overcrowding of Dane County inmates is projected
to continue.

Currently there have been no estimates of the costs of the new
facility, nor has there been a possible location suggested,
according to Hamblin.