By C1 Staff
SANTA CLARA, Calif. — With the passing of AB 109, Santa Clara County recently approved a plan to ask for state funding to improve its main county jail to better keep up with the influx of violent offenders.
The Gilroy-Patch reports that the county will replace its south building, constructed in the 1950s, with a 480-cell tower, while the north building will be retrofitted to make room for those with acute mental health needs.
Officials worry that the price will be considerably greater than the projected $60 to $70 million, as the maximum grant from the state is $80 million, but they still voted unanimously to spend $950,000 toward designing the new proposed tower and remodeling of the north building.
The consultant hired by the county said AB 109 added an additional 700 inmates to the county’s population in 2011, but as of Jan. 14 the population has fallen from 4,157 to 3,622 due to a new voter-passed measure that turned several non-violent felony crimes into misdemeanors.
Still, projections say that the flow of prisoners from state correctional centers based on AB 109 will increase by 33 percent between 2014 and 2034, and the jail currently has an inadequate number of beds to house maximum-security inmates.
On top of that, the deterioration of the jail ‘does not permit security staff to adequately observe inmates and has no space for modern inmate programs and has maintenance problems such as leaky plumbing that has worsened and renovating it would cost more than replacing it.’
Another upgrade officials are hoping for is the overhaul of the jail’s information systems, which currently ‘do not provide even the most basic information about offenders required for the daily management of the jail.’