Long-overcrowded Idaho jail set to open 122 new beds for women
What used to be an empty Caldwell parking lot with faded yellow lines soon will be home to up to 122 female inmates, as the Canyon County jail continues its efforts to combat overcrowding.
It took more than a year, but Canyon County will open a new facility, referred to as pod 6, after 28 secure trailers were installed in the parking lot of the main Dale G. Haile Detention Center.
Canyon County Sheriff Kieran Donahue took local media on a tour of the facility Friday. He said the jail hopes to have female inmates in the pod by Feb. 15.
The stainless steel walls and ceilings of the structure are made up of 28 trailer beds — the kind that would otherwise be pulled by a semi-truck — and the trailers are welded together and altered to create a secure building with separate rooms. A fence with barbed wire surrounds the structure.
The building includes 12 single-person cells and two dormitory-style areas with 18 beds each, and the rest of the beds are in four-person cells. Installation of the beds was delayed repeatedly due to inspection delays.
Pod 6 also includes a private room where attorneys can meet with inmates, a medical room for any basic needs, and a group room where the jail could offer programming such as Alcoholics Anonymous meetings or the women could meet with clergy who volunteer at the jail.
The pod, manned by three deputies at a time, is equipped with 43 cameras in and around the building.
The Canyon County Commission and Sheriff’s Office have been struggling to deal with the overcrowded jail in Caldwell for years. The county has repeatedly asked voters to approve a bond to help fund construction of a new facility — four times since 2006 it has been on the ballot — but the measures have failed to get enough voter support.
A temporary solution
Pod 6 is a temporary fix to provide needed space for female inmates, and the county plans to have a five- to seven-year lease on the structure. The pod cost the county about $4.5 million for construction and the first year of operation. Jail Capt. Daren Ward explained that for every year after, pod 6 will cost another $1.4 million to operate, per its lease.
The structure was installed through All Detainment Solutions, LLC, a Missouri-based company, and the county has a warranty with the company.
Prior to the trailers’ installation, the county had only 77 beds for female inmates and was regularly forced to house them elsewhere, an additional expense.
Ward explained that among the benefits of pod 6 is natural light in the cells, which is good for the mental health of inmates and deputies. There are also two outdoor recreation areas for the women, as jail standards mandate that inmates receive at least five hours of outdoor recreation per week.
Pod 6 has wheelchair lifts, and some cells are ADA compliant for inmates with disabilities.
Though the inspection process was long, and the county was having one more inspection Friday afternoon, Donahue said the work was worth the wait. Both inside and out, pod 6 is functional and no longer looks like trailers.
“This is now a phenomenal building,” he said.
An uncertain future
After some renovations, the Sheriff’s Office will use the 77-bed space in the main jail where women used to be housed to accommodate more male inmates. Even with that space, the main jail likely will exceed the recommended capacity of 80 percent.
As of Friday, the jail was at 93 percent of capacity, and more than a dozen people were being housed in other counties, according to the jail statistics website.
Ward noted that once Canyon County starts using pod 6 and brings back the female inmates currently housed out of county, the pod will be right at 80 percent of capacity. So even on day one, there won’t be much leftover space.
Donahue, who is running for re-election in 2020, has long been an advocate of closing the so-called jail annex, which is a building adjacent to the main maximum-security facility. The annex was built in 1948 and has a slew of safety concerns, but the county has been forced to use it due to a lack of bed space.
Donahue plans to propose a resolution to the board of commissioners to permanently close the annex. The county has repeatedly said the annex is poorly designed and dilapidated, with exposed pipes and other fixtures that create suicide risks. In August, a woman tried to hang herself in the annex, but deputies rescued her.
“It’s not adequate and it’s not appropriate,” Donahue said about the annex.
Even with pod 6 in place, Donahue said he knows that it’s a “temporary fix.”
The jail’s secure tent facility, across the street from pod 6, still houses about 100 low-risk male inmates. The tent facility was built in 2005 for work-release inmates but converted to a minimum-security jail five years later because of chronic jail crowding. Fifteen years later, the county is still dependent on it.
Donahue said he hopes to work with the governor and legislators to find a solution to fund a new, permanent jail for the county, possibly by exploring local option taxes.
