The Real Cost of Prisons Weblog

Published March 12, 2005

Number of beds available for inmates at the Polk County Jail Average daily inmate population in the Polk County Jail Estimated yearly cost of managing overcrowding problems at the jail Yearly revenue new prison could earn from housing federal prisoners Estimated cost of building a 1,500-bed jail in Polk County

Voter information

THE ISSUE: On March 29, Polk County voters will decide whether to borrow $68 million to build a 1,500-bed county jail on unincorporated county land north of Des Moines. The county's current jails hold 512 people. But on a typical day, the county has about 900 inmates. It will spend $4.5 million this year to send overflow inmates to rented cells in other counties. TO PASS: At least 60 percent approval is needed to pass the borrowing plan. If a new jail is built, the main building of the current jail complex on Sixth Avenue (shown above) would be used to process inmates going to and from the courthouse. The annex building on Ninth Avenue would be sold, county officials said.
REGISTRATION: People who have not registered to vote must do so by Friday to vote on the referendum. The Polk County Auditor's Office, 120 Second Ave., Suite A, has registration forms. Call the office at 286-3247 or get a form online at auditor.co.polk.ia.us . ABSENTEE VOTING: People can vote absentee by requesting a ballot from the auditor's office.

By KEVIN DOBBS
REGISTER STAFF WRITER

Josh Fales sat rigidly and rubbed his hands over a steel table as he described how, at age 25, methamphetamine mattered more to him than his baby daughter, more than the daily prospect of jail.

When he couldn't get high, thoughts of suicide consumed him. "I got real close to putting a pistol in my mouth," Fales said. "It was the only way, in my twisted way of thinking, that I could stop using."

That was until he landed last year in the Polk County Jail, one of many in Iowa packed with inmates because of the state's meth epidemic. Fales and thousands more like him have caused a massive overcrowding problem that costs taxpayers millions of dollars.

Sheriff Dennis Anderson ships more than 300 overflow inmates every day to county jails in Iowa and Missouri. Fales, for one, spent four months in area jails last year. This year, Polk County will spend $4.5 million to manage its overcrowding problem.

That figure will keep climbing, the sheriff said, unless taxpayers vote on March 29 to borrow $68 million for a new 1,500-bed jail that would be triple the combined size of the two existing county jails in downtown Des Moines. It would eliminate the outsourcing costs and would mean more space for a drug treatment program to help people like Fales, Anderson said.

The jail would be built on 44 acres of unincorporated land north of the city and would open in 2008.

Polk County Attorney John Sarcone called jail overcrowding "a nightmare" and added, "We just have to have space to deal with it."

But skeptics worry that the price tag is too lofty, that a tax increase would inevitably follow to pay off the debt. They worry, too, that adding more jail cells deals with the meth problem only after people become criminals. They say the county should focus more on drug prevention.

"It has been my belief for a long time that, in this community, we are not really dealing with the root of the problem," said Des Moines lawyer Maggi Moss. "I mean, you can't build enough jails to lock up all the meth dealers."

Supporters counter that a new jail would house 200 federal prisoners, four times the current level. The federal system pays counties $85.52 daily per inmate. That could generate $6 million a year to help pay off the jail debt without higher taxes, Anderson said.

What's more, supporters say, the jail would have a 192-bed wing devoted to drug treatment. Currently, the county has 60 beds for its treatment program, and inmates such as Fales wait months to get into it. The sheriff's department uses federal grant money to pay for the program.

Anderson said the majority of the county's inmates are repeat drug offenders, with meth the leading impetus. The best way to curb the swelling inmate population, drug counselors say, is to treat people while they're in custody to help them beat the addictions that drive them to crime. Anderson cited a University of Iowa analysis showing that 90 percent of people who complete in-custody drug treatment stay clean and out of jail.

"It works, but it has to be a long-term program, no shortcuts," said Kimberly Brangoccio, clinical supervisor of the jail treatment programs.

Fales vows he'll add to the positive statistics. After waiting six months, he started the 120-day program in December.

"I've been incarcerated or high my whole adult life," said Fales, a convicted meth maker, while sitting outside his jail cell. "That's got to change, and I think I'm learning here how to make that change."

Fales, who grew up near Des Moines, shares most waking moments with 40 other inmates - women are in a separate building - in a small cafeteria-like area that is flanked on three sides by cells, the fourth by guards. The inmates spend their days in therapy and support-group meetings. They carve out daily routines that will keep them away from drugs.

When they complete the program and get out of jail, they'll have another eight to 12 months of such meetings before they will officially graduate from treatment.

Ryan Cumming, a 31-year-old in treatment, is in jail on forgery and burglary charges - crimes committed to finance his daily meth use.

"I have a 6-year-old son, and I would have given up my son to use drugs; that's how powerful meth is. That's why I have to be here," Cumming said.

Same goes for Mike Nelson of West Des Moines.

Like so many others, Nelson was taken by the euphoric high that meth delivers to first-time users. He was 18 that first time. He's 26 now. In the time between, he spent nearly every day chasing, in vain, that initial high.

"My days have been consumed by making dope, selling dope and using dope," Nelson said. "I've been a plague on the community for a long, long time."

To be sure, meth is not the only drug problem.

Jackee Stewart of Des Moines attests to that. Stewart, now 22, started using cocaine and ecstasy when he was a student at Roosevelt High School. He has been in jail several times and is there now for cocaine possession.

"Cocaine, man, it's a big problem here, too. I know all about it. I've got two kids (ages 3 and 4). I want to be a father, but I just can't seem to because of all the activities I get into with drugs," Stewart said. "My 3-year-old said to me, 'Dad, why are you always going to jail? When are you gonna stay home and be my dad?' "

Stewart paused, then added: "That's crushing. That's what drugs get you."

All five members of the Polk County Board of Supervisors support the plans for a new jail, citing their confidence in future savings.

The county would pay at least $3.2 million per year toward the debt, compared with the $4.5 million it pays now on outsourcing. Anderson said the latter figure would top $6 million before the end of the decade.

No organized campaign against the jail has formed. But many question the validity of the county's financing plan.

Jeff Riese, executive director of the Polk-Des Moines Taxpayers Association, said his group sees the need for more jail cells but cautions voters to be leery about Anderson's assertion that federal prisoners will help pay off the debt.

If the jail population continues to soar, Riese asked, who's to say county inmates won't squeeze out the federal ones? Who's to say the jail won't be packed in a few years and drug treatment beds won't have to be converted for general population use?

When Black Hawk County taxpayers built a 272-bed jail in 1995, planners said it wouldn't fill up for two decades.

But Sheriff Mike Kubik said in a recent interview that the jail had neared capacity within seven years.

"The wizards, the people that said this would never fill up in 20 years, well, guess what? They were wrong," Kubik said.

Too many questions linger, said Officer Stewart Barnes, president of the Des Moines police union. "We can't support it because we don't know enough," he said.

The inmate boom is a national problem that dates to the 1970s, when crime rates were soaring. Americans demanded tougher punishments. Lawmakers responded with stiffer sentences. Thousands of new jails and prisons have been built since.

Iowa's county jails have collectively added more than 1,614 beds since 1999.

Polk County's daily inmate population hovers around 900. It has cell space for about 500. Five years ago it had 700 inmates on a given day; in 1995, it had 500.

The trend continues, owing largely to drug abuse and society's disdain for crime.

Consider the view of Larry Bartling.

The Altoona man's son was killed four years ago by a drunken driver. The driver was sent to prison for 25 years, with the possibility of parole after a decade. Bartling thinks it should have been a life sentence of hard time. Period.

Bartling said many people simply belong behind bars.

"You have to have deterrents," Bartling said. "People who do these terrible things, they should go through hell to pay for them."

Arthur Gamble, chief Polk County judge, said the court system has used work release and other programs to keep low-threat people out of jail. But he said the metro area's population is growing at a time when its drug-related crime problems are entrenched.

"It's obvious the current jail space is not adequate," Gamble said. Inmates sent to other counties are separated from their lawyers, their families and the courtrooms they must report to. "It's a significant drag on the criminal justice system."

Sheriff Anderson said a new jail would last at least 30 years because it could be expanded to 2,500 beds. An expansion could include more treatment beds, up to 284 in all. By helping people get off drugs, the county will chip away at the number of repeat offenders and save money, Anderson said.

Chris White, 37, said she's proof that can happen.

She started using meth in her early 20s. She would get high one morning and stay high for days. So life went for 15 years.

White lost her job, her home, custody of her daughter. She was in and out of jail.

Finally, during her last jail stay, she got into the treatment program in November 2002. She took the treatment seriously. She did the four months in jail and another eight months of treatment outside.

She's been clean since. She has a job, a place to live.

"The minute you put meth into your system, you are done in," White said. "You need help, long-term help to beat it. It's awful how hard it is, but it can be done."

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