I agree with Arpaio's feelings about our troops and the hardships they endure. Inmates certainly don't deserve to have it any better. Unfortunately, most states are more generous in terms of the conditions they require for inmates, and Oregon and Arizona are no exception to the rule. There are MANY misconceptions about the Arizona tent city, many of which are reflected in the frequently-forwarded segment above.

The following facts come from the summary prepared by Lane County officials who just returned from Maricopa County, Arizona and are encouraging implementation of some of Arpaio's suggestions:

As of three weeks ago the tent city, which currently has a maximum capacity of 1,100 inmates, including 270 females, was hovering at just under 800 inmates. (The Sheriff's web page still advertises a capacity of 2,000, but the Maricopa Risk Manager and the Jail Commander confirmed capacity at only 1,100.) The inmates in the tent city are only the lowest-risk inmates -- the offenders Lane County doesn't hold at all -- and they have to volunteer to serve their time "at the tents". Inmates continue to opt for the tents because doing so cuts their sentences in half and gives them much more freedom than a traditional jail.

Also, contrary to popular belief, inmates at the tent city are no longer served "green meatloaf". They eat two meals per day, brunch and dinner. Brunch typically consists of a turkey or ham sandwich, fruit, chips and milk. The inmates also have commissary privileges, so they can buy chips, juice, candy and other goodies. When it's too hot outside the inmates are always free to come inside the large air-conditioned lunch hall where the TV is always on and each inmate has a private locker for storage of food and other private belongings. (The TVs have not played Gingrich tapes in almost ten years.)

Here's the most critical point: The tent city was added as an overflow addition because the regular jail system was no longer large enough for the population it served. And, at the point they decided they needed more jail capacity, MARICOPA ALREADY HAD SIX TIMES THE PER-CAPITA CAPACITY LANE HAS HAD for the last few years. That's right, at their worst overcrowding, Maricopa had six times the population-adjusted-hard-bed capacity Lane County had before the last cut. Here's the math:

The Maricopa County jail system has a total capacity of 12,000 inmates, of which only 9% is at tent-city. The remaining 91% of their capacity ranges from the "dorm-like" corrections structure, like most of Lane County's jail capacity, to the new "max" facility on 4th Avenue in Phoenix. The population of Maricopa County is approximately 3.8 million, so a jail capacity of 12,000 inmates amounts to one jail bed for every 316 citizens. There are 338,000 citizens in Lane County. To achieve the same ratio of beds to citizens, Lane County would need 1,069 beds, 973 (91%) of which would be the so-called "hard" jail beds, and 95 would be in a low-risk, minimum security "tent city". That's a great idea, and similar ratios are found all over the country, but Lane County citizens would NEVER pay for it. We've choked on a series of public safety tax measures, the most expensive of which asked for less than half the money necessary to produce a Lane-sized Maricopa County system.

We don't have to look far to see confirmation that our numbers are WAY out of whack. Just look north, east or south.

Douglas County, Oregon, immediately south of Lane, has 287 jail beds to serve it's more rural, lower-crime-population of only 105,000. Douglas also withdrew from participation in SB-1145, so it uses ALL of it's jail for local prisoners. That produces a ratio of one jail bed for every 365 residents. (Lane County could not afford to withdraw from the SB-1145 program, because doing so would cost the county over $10 million in state community corrections funding per year, so Lane takes the money in exchange for maintaining an average of 200 state prison inmates in the county jail system and providing other services, like POs and drug treatment. The sheriff manages the SB-1145 prisoners by keeping half or more of them out of the jail in some form of "alternative program", but the state inmates STILL absorb over 25% of the available jail beds... After all, they're SUPPOSED to be in prison.)

As of the jail-bed closures last weekend, Lane County has dropped from an average of 150 local beds to 93 and, according to the Sheriff's interview on KVAL, the drop to the 2008 budget level of 27 local beds must be implemented by July 1st. That will leave the sheriff with approximately one-fiftieth of what he needs and less than a third of what it takes to hold the most violent measure 11 offenders. The DA has tried to help by stopping the return of our criminals arrested in other states, slowing the filing rate, cutting the number of arrest warrants in half, and cutting the number of probation violations by 75%. That's saving thousands of jail lodgings per year, but the remaining volume still overwhelms the jail.

Here's how absurd it is: Even if the county could afford to staff and open the WHOLE jail, and the contracts with the federal government and the cities could be cancelled to free the ENTIRE facility for county use, the county would be able to hold only 465 inmates in the jail. (That's 500 beds subject to the federal court order which limits the sheriff to 93% of total capacity.) There's no money to replace the city and federal rental income, of course, but even if there were, that would STILL produce a citizen to bed ratio of only one bed for every 726 citizens -- LESS THAN HALF of a normal sized jail for a jurisdiction this size.

Of course, Lane County hasn't been able to run the jail exclusively for county criminals in more than a decade. Over the last ten years budget reductions have reduced the net capacity available for local criminals from about 350 to 250, to 220, to 150, to 93 (today) and, soon, to 27.

Today's capacity of 93 produces a ratio of one bed for every 3,634 citizens. Our status following July 1 (one bed for each 12,518 citizens).

If the county spent EVERY general fund dollar on the Sheriff it wouldn't be enough to build, staff and operate a facility proportionately sized and structured to match the Maricopa facility because, unlike the Arizona folks, our citizens are not willing to pay for it. (And when I say "every" dollar, I mean closing the DA's office and Medical Examiner, closing Elections, closing Assessment and Taxation, closing Payroll and Human Resources, closing Administration, including the administrator, auditors and all county commissioners, and discontinuing ALL county funding for Health and Human Services.) Remember, the 1996 estimated cost of constructing a "right-sized" jail was over $60,000,000. Construction costs have more than doubled since then, and the county's ability to bond has been impaired by failure to maintain a sufficient reserve fund. At 10% per year in bond service, jail construction would likely cost at least $12 million per year. Projects six or ten times that size are common in Phoenix but, once again, our citizens will not tolerate an average tax burden, and there's no way to undertake such projects without money.

Mr. Trilogy, I'm afraid your speculation has produced many math and reasoning errors. First, the county charges over $100 per day for each federal inmate, so the monthly cost is closer to $3,000, not $1,000, but your point still isn't valid, because the principal cost of corrections is manpower, not the structure in which the inmates reside. I'm sure your rental housing suggestion was just tongue-in-cheek, but the sheriff is actually doing a fine job of economizing given the constraints Oregon law imposes. His costs for most inmates are substantially lower than those paid by Joe Arpaio for inmates of similar risk level.

Also, as he explained during the televised budget process, the Lane County Sheriff's contract with the feds is based upon dynamic averages, not a requirement that every one of the 100 contracted beds be occupied every day. The Sheriff explained that it wasn't uncommon for the federal prisoner volume to surge and ebb during different times of the year. This year it ebbed but the surge didn't return before he had to act to protect the budget. That lack of "surge" was only part of the problem. The other piece is the loss of large numbers of deputies as they flee his sinking ship. The exodus of deputies leaving to avoid layoff has forced the sheriff to cover shifts with overtime, a problem which has driven overtime costs up almost $75,000 per MONTH. Between those two influences, and the imminent reductions to meet the 2008-2009 budget, the sheriff was forced to start the ramp-down six weeks early. Remember, the 2008 target under the County Administrator's budget is only 27 local jail beds, and that must be implemented by July 1, so the Sheriff had to start the ramp down earlier.

After seeing the commissioner's presentation on the Maricopa trip (also available on-line), it's clear that some members of the county leadership would like to rebuild the jail (or build a new one) to take advantage of economies discovered in Arizona. The biggest saving comes from "direct-inmate-supervision" with higher inmate to corrections officer ratios, and that can only be achieved with improvements in facility structure that were not available when the Lane County jail was built over 30 years ago. Commissioner Fleenor hopes that operational economies will save enough to pay for the bond necessary to finance a jail remodel or rebuild, but there is no escaping the fact that Lane County residents are unwilling to pay anything like the tax burden the rest of the country pays for public safety. To reproduce a Lane County-sized version of the Maricopa County patrol and corrections system it would cost well in excess of $100 million annually, and our citizens choked on a tax measure less than half that size.

By the way, it's great that Arpaio found such creative solution for animal care, but the Lane County solution is even cheaper. The Lane County Administrator's budget calls for killing the animal regulation program entirely, as it's a lower priority than keeping the last few jail beds and the last few DAs and patrol officers. (As proposed, the budget cuts another $80,000 from the DA too. To balance the budget the DA will layoff another four deputy DAs, slash the medical examiner's budget, and cut another four positions from the support staff. Only 1 of the 11 DA investigators is left, so there will be no further investigator layoffs. The cuts will result in the loss of over 8,000 attorney hours per year, necessitating the reduction of at least 2,000 more cases. That will effectively kill the felony drug and property crime prosecution, and that will in turn kill the state funding under the community corrections act. It's a terribly grim picture and, frankly, terribly difficult to sort out. It's hard to imagine how bad this will get before it gets better, but I don't expect the politicians to stick their neck out again. This time the solution may have to come from the public, and I don't see that happening either.

I do agree with "Spanky" on one point: This is the result we have demanded of our public officials. I just hope we can recover before something awful happens, because I think we've been unimaginably stupid.