By Erik Lacayo
The Fresno Bee
KINGS COUNTY, Calif. — Inmate overcrowding has created a dire situation at the Kings County Jail, county officials warn.
Some inmates are forced to sleep on the floor while jail staff has been overextended with more work and longer hours, Assistant Sheriff Brain Wheat said.
Officials hope a Kings County judge will provide relief Friday by approving a population cap, allowing for the early release of prisoners.
As of last Friday, the jail had 384 inmates -- 53 of them sleeping on the floor, Wheat said. The jail’s capacity is supposed to be 361 inmates.
“It’s definitely an emergency,” Wheat said. “It’s a serious safety issue.”
The situation is so urgent that county officials were able to get a court hearing moved up one week, Assistant County Administrative Officer Deb West said.
Kings County had been conducting early releases since 2001, when prisoners were housed at the county’s old jail facility.
The original court order for early releases became void when all inmates were moved to the new Hanford jail in July, West said.
Although Kings County built the new $32 million facility, it doesn’t hold significantly more inmates than the old jail, which had a capacity for about 300 inmates.
The county doesn’t have funds to complete a planned expansion of the new jail, West said.
A $25 million second phase would add about 200 inmate beds, while a third phase would add about 300 beds.
Since it is unknown when construction for the next phase of the jail will begin, early releases for some inmates seem to be the only solution for the county’s overcrowded facility.
“It’s going to be common practice until we find additional funding to go forward,” West said.
Wheat said inmates who don’t have a cell have been sleeping on mattresses on the floor in communal areas since June.
When maintenance or medical staff have to go into the housing units, inmates have to be moved or more guards have to be present to ensure safety, Wheat said.
A fight broke out last week between two inmates in an overflow section of the jail, Wheat said.
“Something has got to give eventually,” Wheat said. “You do look at the worst-case scenario.”
Inmates can’t be moved back to the old jail along Lacey Boulevard because it no longer meets California Department of Corrections standards, Wheat said.
It is presently being used as a holding area for inmates awaiting court hearings.
“The old jail is a maintenance nightmare,” Wheat said.
The overcrowding also is taking a toll on the the jail’s 80 employees, who have been working a lot of overtime, Wheat said.
“Our overtime situation has gotten to a crisis point,” he said.
One local defense attorney called the situation “ridiculous.”
Michelle Winspur, who represents more than 20 jail inmates, said scheduling meetings with her jailed clients is a problem.
Some of Winspur’s clients reported having to sleep on the floor and being placed in temporary holding cells all day, she said.
Winspur said she can’t understand why the county would spend millions on a new jail that didn’t solve the overcrowding issue.
“Talk about not planning ahead,” she said. “They should have known it when they built the jail.”
The original plan called for a much larger jail, West said, but two sales tax initiatives to pay for the bigger jail were rejected by Kings County voters.
West said county officials did anticipate the new jail was going to become overcrowded like the old jail. Construction of the new jail was completed last October but the county wasn’t able to seek a new court order until it was fully functional in July, West said.
“It’s not that we sat on it,” West said. “We’re doing everything that we can.”
Copyright 2007 Fresno Bee