County officials cannot remember the last time the jail was “depopulated.”
By Kevin Krause
The Dallas Morning News
DALLAS COUNTY, Tex. — Dallas County’s jails are running so far under capacity that the Sheriff’s Department has moved all prisoners out of one jail building for the first time in years.
The Bill Decker jail, an overflow facility off Interstate 35E that has been open for more than 20 years, was emptied of its prisoners Monday, sheriff’s officials said. County officials cannot remember the last time the jail was “depopulated.”
The minimum-security jail will remain operational until the county’s new $65 million jail tower opens in February at the Lew Sterrett Justice Center complex. At that point, the Decker jail will be shut down.
The new south tower jail will house up to 2,300 inmates. Its opening will also allow another jail, the Suzanne Kays jail on Industrial Avenue, to close.
Commissioner John Wiley Price said he doesn’t expect the Decker jail to house any more inmates. The county has ordered an appraisal of the building, and commissioners plan to put it on the market.
The Dallas Central Appraisal District values the building at $11.8 million.
“I don’t ever see it reopening,” Mr. Price said.
Keeping inmates out of the jail saves the county $100,000 per floor, Mr. Price said.
Sheriff’s spokeswoman Kim Leach said the shrinking jail population allowed the department to move inmates from Decker to other jails. The county’s jail population as of Wednesday was 5,696, she said.
That is considerably lower than last year, when more than 7,000 inmates were crowded into the county’s five jails. The county’s total jail capacity is 7,660, according to the Texas Commission on Jail Standards.
In February 2007, the jail commission ordered county officials to reduce their inmate population or shut down their jails and pay millions of dollars to send inmates to other counties.
Since then, county officials have enacted new policies to reduce jail crowding, such as expedited plea bargains and diversionary court programs that offer substance abuse treatment.
Dan Savage, the county’s assistant Commissioners Court administrator, said the jails’ population normally dips during the winter, especially around the holidays.
The 10-story Decker jail, a former luxury hotel, opened in 1987. It can house 1,080 inmates. Because it’s a minimum-security jail, it held most of the inmates on work-release programs.
Dallas County bought the building for $9.2 million in 1985 and spent an additional $5 million to convert it into a jail.
It was named after Sheriff James E. “Bill” Decker, who rode in the presidential motorcade when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas in 1963.
At a glance: Decker Jail
-- Decker was built in 1962 as a luxury hotel, once owned by actress Doris Day.
-- The Beatles stayed in rooms on the fourth floor in 1964 during their first American tour.
-- Dallas County bought the 297-room hotel, then known as the DuPont Plaza Hotel, for $9.2 million in 1985.
-- The county spent about $5 million to convert it into a jail for 1,080 male and female inmates. The jail opened in August 1987.
-- The Dallas Central Appraisal District values the building at $11.8 million.
-- It was named after Sheriff James E. “Bill” Decker (1898-1970), who rode in the presidential motorcade when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas in 1963.
-- In 2005, the county temporarily housed evacuees from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in the building.
Copyright 2009 The Dallas Morning News