Salt Lake County Sheriff Aaron D. Kennard says he may be forced to put some felons back out on the streets as early as this weekend if jail overcrowding gets any worse.
"You could say we have a semi-crises situation here," the sheriff told reporters as he was about to confer with county commissioners concerning possible emergency actions to resolve the problem.According to Kennard, the county's medium and maximum security jail in downtown Salt Lake City was 24 prisoners away Friday from reaching a federal court-ordered cap of 540. Meanwhile, the minimum security Oxbow Jail in South Salt Lake had room for only six more prisoners.
Noting that this is traditionally the slowest season of the year for jail bookings and that the prisoner population always increases on weekends, Kennard said time is running out.
"We anticipate the beds will be full this weekend, and if they are, we will have no choice but to kick out some of the low-risk candidates," he said.
In his meeting with commissioners, the sheriff sought immediate funding to open a second unit at the new Oxbow facility. Only one of three jail pods at Oxbow is being used, partly because of lack of funding and partly because of a conditional-use permit that prevents the county from housing high-risk inmates there.
Kennard said there are presently no prisoners in the main jail who qualify for transfer to Oxbow, which means opening a second pod is unlikely to relieve the overcrowding downtown.
But with Oxbow also reaching capacity, Kennard said he needs about $275,000 for 13 corrections officers and a nurse to staff the Oxbow pod as soon as possible.
Commissioner Randy Horiuchi said the sheriff could get the money as early as Monday if the ominous jail population projections stand up to closer scrutiny. The commission budgeted $200,000 for Oxbow this year just in case the second pod was needed, he said.
South Salt Lake Mayor Eldon Farnsworth said county officials have informed him of their interest in opening another Oxbow unit but "nothing has been presented to our City Council." And he complained that the county isn't keeping his city informed of its intentions with respect to Oxbow.
The actions being proposed by the sheriff may provide some temporary relief, but officials acknowledged that there is no long-term solution short of building a new maximum-security jail.
"We need to begin that process by the end of this year or early next year at the latest," Kennard said. "We can't wait any longer than that."