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The Cincinnati Beacon
Commissioner DeWine Debates Pepper on the Jail Proposal
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
Posted by The Dean of Cincinnati
 Photo courtesy of here.
Commissioner Pat DeWine responds to Commissioner David Pepper.
I read with interest the interview with Commissioner David Pepper regarding the Pepper/Portune/Leis jail plan. Thanks to the hard work of the citizen led referendum effort we have real opportunities like this to examine the plan and debate its merits. In addition to the doubts that many have already expressed, several important questions were raised in yesterday’s interview. I appreciate the time and effort that Commissioner Pepper put into his response, but I believe several statements deserve clarification.
*Claim: Under the Portune/Pepper Jail plan there will be a net increase of 784 beds.
FACT: Commissioner Pepper puts forth several numbers which make it appear that there will be a total net new 784 jail beds if his jail plan is enacted. The fact of the matter is that there are several critical omissions. First, it does not include the 400 available spaces we have in Butler County (only 300 of which we are currently using). Second, it excludes the 184 jail spaces that their plan says we will lease to the federal government in the first year of operation. If you factor those numbers in you have an increase of only about 200 net new available jail beds. That’s 200 jail beds for $777 million.
Moreover, it is true that there is a very real possibility that the County may be forced to end double bunking at the Justice Center if a new facility is built. This is an issue that was identified by the County’s jail consultant, Gail Elias of the Voorhis Group, in individual meetings with the Commissioners last year. Right now, the only one of our facilities out of compliance with Ohio Bureau of Adult Detention (O.B.A.D.) standards is the Justice Center because of the double bunking issue. A new jail facility, that included space for 184 federal inmates, could very well lead O.B.A.D. to force us to end double bunking, resulting in a loss of 400 jail spaces, and an actual decrease in the number of available jail spaces from what we have today.
*Claim: Housing federal prisoners in our jail system is to the County’s benefit.
FACT: The Pepper/Portune jail plan calls for housing far more than 40 federal prisoners. In the interview, Commissioner Pepper failed to correct the Dean when he stated that the plan calls for the housing of 40 federal prisoners. Actually, in the first year of operation alone the plan relies on the new jail housing 184 federal prisoners. That’s nearly 67,160 jail bed nights per year. Think about that. We are supposedly in the middle of a jail space crisis, and their proposal calls for using 67,160 jail bed days to house federal prisoners instead of County offenders. Both the Sheriff, and Commissioners Pepper and Portune have stated repeatedly that our jail is overcrowded. If this is true, it’s an outrage that we are continuing to house federal prisoners, and that we plan to house even more when we have other options at our disposal.
Last week I formally proposed that we end the practice of housing of federal prisoners in our jails. (Today we have 35 such prisoners.) Such a move would immediately free up 12,775 bed days per year in our jail system. Additionally, the Ohio Revised Code, in O.R.C. 341.21, clearly states that such federal contracts may only be entered into by the Board of County Commissioners. The current contract was entered into illegally by the Sheriff’s Office. Moreover, ending federal prisoner housing would save the County approximately $72,179.00 in housing costs since the federal government reimburses Hamilton County at a lower rate for the spaces then the County is currently paying to lease space in Butler County. In spite of all of these factors, the Commission majority as of yet has refused to act on my motion to end the housing of federal prisoners.
It’s also important to understand that the federal government will only reimburse the County for operating costs. None of the money we will receive from the federal government will help pay for the construction of the new jail, only the actual costs of housing federal prisoners there.
*Claim: The County can’t continue using the Queensgate facility to house inmates on a long-term basis.
FACT: Commissioner Pepper would have you believe that we can no longer use the Queensgate facility under any circumstances. This is simply untrue. I appreciate the letter he provided from the Ohio Bureau of Adult Detention (O.B.A.D.). Anyone can see, however, that it lacks a clear conclusion that the facility is not up to minimum standards.
If the Queensgate facility were as bad as the Sheriff and Commission majority would have you believe, O.B.A.D. could simply shut the building down. In fact, they have a statutory obligation to do so. O.R.C. 341.34 states that “A building or structure shall not be used to confine any person unless it is in compliance with all minimum standards and minimum renovation, modification, and construction criteria for minimum security jails that have been proposed by the department of rehabilitation and correction, through its bureau of adult detention.” For the past 15 years though the facility has continued to meet Bureau of Adult Detention minimum standards for jails.
The private entity that owns Queensgate repeatedly offered in the past to perform a substantial amount of renovation to the facility that would address the issues pointed out in the O.B.A.D. letter in exchange for a longer term lease. The Board of Commissioners, however, has never pursued such an option.
I strongly believe that we have a real need to address both the County’s jail space needs and the process problems we have within our criminal justice system. I continue to disagree though with the proposal put forth by my colleagues. It is not just fiscally unsound, but fails to adequately address the real issues at hand. I look forward to continuing the debate over the next several months, and sincerely hope that the Commission majority will re-examine their proposal and work with me to come up with a better solution.
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