The Marshall County Commissioners and County Attorney Jim Clevenger were emailed by Sheriff Matt Hassel last week concerning jail overcrowding. He requested an intergovernmental agreement with an agreed to rate to house inmates from the Marshall County Jail in other jails due to the excessive number of inmates. The request also included setting up a funding source to pay for the additional housing costs.
During Monday’s meeting First Sergeant Neal Wallace said the population was at or near 250 Sunday night. When asked what had caused the increase he said the Drug Task Force was going really good work and there are a number of people who just are violating the laws. The jail population was down to 241 Monday afternoon.
Last August the Sheriff told the commissioners the jail population has seen a steady increase. He gave a brief rundown on the average daily population over the last 4 years. In 2014 the average daily population was 132 while it decreased to 127 in 2015, the population jumped back up in 2016 to a daily average of 137 and in the 2017 the average was 153. During the first 6 months of 2018 the monthly average inmate population was 166 in January, 184 in February, 194 in March, 201 in April, 198 in May and 212 in June. The highest count in July was 240.
The Marshall County Jail has 239 regular beds, 2 detoxification cells, 2 medical cells, 1 padded cell and 1 observation cell.
During the August meeting there was some discussion of building a new pod on the jail what would double its size. Commissioner Overmyer and County Council President Judy Stone had met with representatives of RQAW and looked at an additional pod for the jail but in the mean time, the judges, prosecutor, probation and Community Corrections met and worked on a game plan to get inmates through the system quicker and free up some jail space.
County Attorney Jim Clevenger said if he was going to prepare an intergovernmental agreement, he needed to know which counties it would be with and what the approved rate would be. He also said, “I’m not sure what happened to our recent plan with the judges and prosecutor to reduce the jail population.”
While the state rate is $35 a day, it was anticipated that the county’s rate would be higher plus the additional transportation fees. Commissioner Klotz also asked about medical costs for those not held in the Marshall County Jail.
The Commissioners asked the County Attorney to contact the Sheriff and find out what his thoughts are.
