Prison Board mulls $378K expansion of Bradford County jail

TOWANDA - For Bradford County jail Warden Donald Stewart, the overcrowding problem at the Bradford County jail has come to a head.

On Thursday, Stewart asked the Bradford County Prison Board to decide if the county should go forward with a $378,000 construction project that would convert the jail's gymnasium to a medium-security housing unit, which could provide an additional 45 beds for the jail.

"We have some dangerous numbers now" at the jail in terms of the size of the inmate population, Stewart said at the prison board's meeting on Thursday. While the county recently began housing its excess prisoners at the Tioga County prison, last week the Tioga County prison was too full to accept any more of them, Stewart and the Bradford County commissioners explained. And while the Bradford County commissioners approved a contract with Wayne County Thursday under which some excess Bradford County prisoners could also be housed at the Wayne County jail, that jail is two hours away and has only a limited number of beds to rent out to other counties, Stewart said.

And the only other county jails that could accept inmates from Bradford County are even further away than Wayne County, including a number in the western part of the state, he said.

"I think a lot of counties are struggling" to find places to house their excess inmates, Bradford County Commissioner Mark Smith said.

In response to Stewart's request for a decision, Bradford County Commissioner Doug McLinko recommended to the other members of the prison board that they take a little time to think over whether to go forward with the conversion before making a decision on the matter. The prison board, which runs the Bradford County jail, made no decision Thursday on whether the conversion will occur.

Stewart told the prison board that he was surprised that no significant fights or other unusual occurrences had taken place over the past month at the Bradford County jail, since "tensions are high" at the prison, due to the jail's high population numbers.

Currently, there are 199 Bradford County inmates, 186 of whom are housed at the Bradford County jail, which has a capacity of 198 inmates. The rest of Bradford County's inmates are housed at other facilities, including six at the Tioga County prison and some on a temporary basis at state facilities.

Currently, Bradford County is spending $7,000 per month housing its excess inmates at the Tioga County prison, Smith said.

The converted gym would have bunk beds moved into it and would not be turned into "cells," Stewart said.

Larson Design Group of Williamsport recently completed a study on the feasibility of converting the gym to a housing unit, and their estimate for the conversion was $378,000, which includes the construction costs and the cost of the bunk beds that would be located there, the commissioners said.

However, the $378,000 estimate does not include the cost of extra security measures that would be needed for the converted gym or the cost of staffing it, they said.

Stewart told the prison board Thursday that the there would need to be a corrections officer "in there (in the converted gym) 24 hours a day."

The conversion of the gym would involve a "quite extensive" construction project, including the installation of bathroom facilities, showers, a drop ceiling, and changes to the heating system, McLinko said.

Stewart told the prison board that the conversion of the gym was not an ideal option to address the overcrowding, but that it would at least address the problem.

Stewart explained that he would "much prefer" a housing unit that consisted of cells, rather then a large area with bunk beds in it.

And, he said, "losing the gym is not a good thing," since giving inmates time to exercise has psychological benefits, which "keeps tensions down" at the jail, he said.

Stewart said that if the conversion goes forward, he would want other opportunities for recreation to be created, such as activities in the prison yard.

The number of beds the converted gym would contain has not been set, but Stewart said that under the design plan that he prefers, it would house 45 inmates.

McLinko suggested that, as an alternative to the conversion, the county consider hiring someone who would work to keep the jail's inmate population down, such as by helping inmates find an acceptable place to live when they are released on parole. Currently, approximately 10 inmates at the jail are being denied parole because there is no acceptable place for them to live upon their release, McLinko explained.

Stewart acknowledged that creating such a position would help, but he said it would not solve the overcrowding problem, since he expected there to still be times when the jail would have trouble finding beds for inmates.

If the jail's population decreased in the future, it would not be difficult to convert the housing unit back into a gymnasium, Stewart said. However, Stewart noted that the conversion of the gym to a housing unit would involve the permanent loss of the jail's print shop, which is located next to the gym.

The overcrowding problem in the inmate population began within the past year.

In January 2011, the average inmate population at the Bradford County jail was 135, while in January 2012, the facility's average inmate population was 175.

Smith has said the large increase in the county's population in recent years was the reason for the overcrowding, since a larger population will result in more people being sentenced to jail.

McLinko said that one advantage of converting the gym to a housing unit is that if the jail's population decreased in the future and then went back up again, "we'll always have a place to house them (inmates)."

He said that changes in the amount of gas industry activity in the local area could cause significant changes in the county's population, which would in turn be reflected in the number of inmates at the jail.

The cost of housing an inmate at the Tioga County prison is $60 per day, while the cost of housing an inmate at the Wayne County jail is $65 per day, Stewart said.

Of the 151 people committed to the Bradford County jail since Jan. 1, 22 worked in the gas industry, Stewart said.

Of those 22 gas industry workers, 12 were local and 10 were from out of the county, he said.

In determining who works in the gas industry, the county relies on information provided by the inmate at the time of his or her arrival at the jail, he said.

However, there are cases where the inmate states that he or she is unemployed, but later gets mail at the jail showing that he or she worked for a gas company, he said.

James Loewenstein can be reached at (570) 265-1633; or email: jloewenstein@thedailyreview.com.