Canyon County aims to put fewer minor offenders in jail

Grappling with a long-running problem of overcrowding at the Canyon County jail, officials are considering various options, such as releasing some people arrested for minor, nonviolent crimes rather than putting them in cells.

They're also contemplating placing security ankle bracelets on some minor offenders as they await sentencing and reducing work-release fees to attract more inmates to the work release center - the only part of the jail complex that routinely has empty beds.

The jail has exceeded its 361-prisoner capacity since 2001; last week the jail population was 425. To accommodate the flood of prisoners, the county has added triple bunks in many areas and put mattresses on the floor - measures that violate state jail standards and raises red flags for the county's insurer and the American Civil Liberties Union of Idaho. But agencies have been patient, acknowledging the county's good-faith efforts to address the problem.

County leaders tried to pass a $72.5 million bond in 2006 to build a massive new jail along Nampa-Caldwell Boulevard, but the measure fell short of the needed two-thirds majority. They planned to build a stopgap 224-bed jail north of Caldwell this fall with $3.2 million in funds on hand. But a troubled economy led to much lower county revenues than expected, and commissioners decided to put off the project until fall 2010 in order to balance the budget and avoid laying off workers.

Now officials feel renewed pressure from the ACLU of Idaho, which has discussed suing the county and had the Canyon jail on its agenda for this weekend's board meeting.

ACLU representatives toured the jail Oct. 28 and found staff cooperative but prisoner accommodations "pretty dreary" and "definitely overcrowded," ACLU attorney Lea Cooper told the Idaho Statesman.

"We spoke to a woman seven months pregnant who was sleeping on the floor," she said.

The organization's legal committee met Thursday to discuss the situation and make a recommendation to the ACLU board, Cooper said, but the results of that discussion are confidential.

Asked what Canyon County could do to avoid a lawsuit from the ACLU, she said, "they could increase staffing. I think there's a critical safety issue there."

Hiring new staff would be unlikely under a tight budget, but county leaders are looking at various ways to reduce the number of inmates the staff oversees. Chief among the current ideas is a proposed book-and-release plan that would keep some minor offenders out of the jail as they await trial.

"The whole idea is to get our numbers down to whatever requests (the ACLU) are going to give us," Canyon County Sheriff Chris Smith told the Idaho Press-Tribune.

Canyon County Commissioner Steve Rule said he's concerned the county could acquire a reputation as being soft on crime, but law enforcement leaders said violent offenders would not be included in the book-and-release plan.

"Anyone who's a threat to the community is still going to have to go to jail and post bond," Nampa Police Chief Bill Augsburger said. "There's some people that just flat out need to go to jail, and we won't change that."

The Canyon jail released 17 inmates Wednesday after a special court hearing in which prosecutors and public defenders worked together to offer sentences of "time served" to inmates if they pleaded guilty to their nonviolent misdemeanors.