Feeling the squeeze
Overcrowding strains jail's booking area, offices, storage capacity
By DAVID LOWE Staff Writer

PHOTOS BY DAVID LOWE Jail Administrator Cathy Groothoff points out a jumble of electronic equipment in a storage room at the Lampasas County Jail. The seven-foot-by-11-foot room was intended for fingerprinting, but due to crowding at the facility, the room now houses computer servers and other electronic, telephone and radio equipment, along with work stations for two jail employees.

Sheriff Gordon Morris knows his department will have to do the best it can with available space as long as voters reject a new county jail.

The Lampasas County Commissioners Court is considering establishing a citizens committee to study the jail and discuss options for a new facility. Without a new facility, Morris and other Sheriff's Department officials believe overcrowding at the existing downtown jail will continue hurting the department's budget and its daily operations.

The jail, upgraded to a 37-bed facility in 1990, lacks the cells to house the 53 inmates per day the department averaged from January through October 2007. As a result, deputies transport inmates to outof town jails, primarily in Comanche and Taylor counties. The Sheriff's Department typically makes several such trips each day, Morris said.

Only a few feet separate chief sheriff's deputy David Whitis from a holding cell as he stands in front of the booking area at the county jail. Whitis and other jail officials believe tight confines represent a safety concern to inmates, deputies and justices of the peace, as inmates being arraigned stand less than five feet from the holding cell and about two feet across a table from the magistrate arraigning them.

"We're doing a massive amount of transporting inmates," he said.

Sometimes as many as four employees at once transport inmates, which means the department cannot use all its deputies to patrol in Lampasas County. Trips to the Comanche County jail take at least three and a half hours, Chief Deputy David Whitis said.

Sending deputies to transport inmates to out-of-county jails also results in fewer employees to keep watch at the Lampasas County detention facility.

A series of storage sheds, some filled almost to the top with boxes, on the west side of the county jail contain medical files and other records on inmates housed in the downtown facility.

Although 14 jailers and dispatchers work for the Sheriff's Department, dispatchers are not available for jailing duties when they have to man telephones, Morris said.

"You don't take them away from that function just to be jailers," he said. "(Citizens) don't realize part of that staff is tied up in communications."

Along with overseeing inmates at the Lampasas jail, the Sheriff's Department remains responsible for the records and medical needs of inmates sent out of county.

"We're basically operating two county jails," Jail Administrator Cathy Groothoff said. "They're still our inmates, so we have a huge liability issue."

Building a facility large enough to house all county inmates would allow jail officials direct oversight and a chance to respond more quickly if problems arise, Ms. Groothoff said.

Along with the trouble of transporting prisoners out of county, the department also must contend with overcrowding at the local jail.

The booking area especially poses safety concerns, officials said. Only a two-foot table separates an inmate from the judge arraigning him and, unlike most newly built jails, the Lampasas facility's booking area does not contain a barrier.

As a result, if a prisoner becomes violent, the magistrate does not have space to react or move to a safer location.

Just about five feet separate the booking table from a holding cell behind it, which sometimes contains as many as four prisoners. As a result, if officers had to use force on an inmate who resisted during arraignment, inmates in the cell could reach out and grab the deputies, Whitis said.

"It's a safety issue for (justices of the peace), officers and inmates," Morris added.

A scuffle also could damage the more than $30,000 fingerprinting equipment, located just a few feet from the booking table, Whitis said.

Because the detoxification cell has been occupied by one inmate for an extended period, jailers are using the holding cell for detox, Ms. Groothoff said. Officers also need a more secure place to search inmates, the jail administrator added.

"If we have to do a strip search on an inmate, right now we have to take them to a laundry room," she said.

Jails that Morris and other officials have considered as models for a new Lampasas County facility typically centralize the inmate processing location but separate the areas where inmates dress, take booking photos and have their fingerprints made.

"We don't have that luxury here," Ms. Groothoff said.

Jail employees also have said they do not have adequate storage or work space in the existing facility.

A seven-foot-by-11-foot room near the booking area, originally intended for storage and fingerprinting, now serves as a control room.

Along with work stations for the operations coordinator and a detention officer, the room houses the jail's radio system, 9-1-1 and telephone equipment, as well as computer servers and recording equipment.

Ms. Groothoff shares an office with the assistant jail administrator.

The jail has about a 12-by-12-foot kitchen and lacks storage to keep food for much more than a week, Whitis said. Jail officials hope a new detention center would include enough kitchen space and additional food storage to keep goods for up to 30 days -- the standard for most new jails -- in case an emergency prevented food delivery.

With indoor storage areas filled, the Sheriff's Department has begun using outdoor sheds to keep prisoner files and medical records.

"It's not as secure as the state wants it to be, and it's not as secure as I want it to be," Morris said.

The county facility passed a Dec. 4 inspection by the Texas Commission on Jail Standards, and Lampasas County Judge Wayne Boultinghouse said officials are managing with limited space.

"We're doing OK with what we have," the judge said.

In a February 2006 evaluation, though, the commission advised Lampasas County it needed 96 inmate beds immediately. The downtown jail is operating under more than 20 variances, in everything from cell sizes to the amount of office space.

Boultinghouse said the state jail commission eventually could issue county officials an ultimatum: Bring the jail up to state standards or close it.

"We don't want that to happen," Boultinghouse said.

Morris said he has enough employees to continue driving excess inmates out of county, and the jail should be able to continue meeting minimum state standards. Crowding still strains jail employees' needs for storage and prisoner space, though, the sheriff added.

"It's a bleak outlook with the way we're set up," he said. "We're in a dire hurt for operational spaces, storage spaces and the right type of cells to hold the suicidal inmates or mentally ill inmates."

Space concerns extend to the facility's exterior, too, where jail workers have run out of room for seized vehicles and employee parking. Morris often parks several blocks away from the jail when he cannot find a parking space.

"We're out of room everywhere," he said.