Carolyn Fath
Last week, Dane County got a cheaper option for closing its outdated — and some say inhumane — jail in the City County Building. But the project, which has been debated for more than a decade, is not a done deal.
A $99 million proposal — the latest and least expensive of three options to modernize the county’s aging jail facilities — was presented to the County Board at a special meeting on June 15. Like the other plans, it consolidates jail operations under one roof at the Public Safety Building on Doty Street.
Supv. Carousel Bayrd — who sits on the Public Protection & Judiciary Committee — is willing to support the new proposal and hopeful that the county will finally act. But, she concedes, “It’s possible nothing will pass and we are back to square one.”
The most pressing issue for the county is what to do with its dangerous 60-year-old jail on the top floors of the City County Building. Additionally, there is no space in any facility to hold inmates with mental health or critical medical conditions. Currently, many inmates are housed 23 hours a day in isolation cells simply because there is nowhere else for them to go. But concerns from County Executive Joe Parisi over costs continue to cast doubt on the much-needed overhaul of the jail.
David Way, project manager for the consulting firm Mead & Hunt, told the board on June 15 that the endeavor won't be easy, in part because the jail system would be fully operational during construction.
“This is probably and likely the most difficult and complex project Dane County has ever seen,” Way said at the meeting. “It’s on a downtown, urban site. A very tight site to build as you can see by the construction around it. It’s difficult. Not saying it can’t be done. It certainly can be done…. But I do want to note it’s a tough project.”
The political environment is also presenting challenges and has stymied the board from acting on more comprehensive options. Mead & Hunt presented a 700-page report in December 2016 with two detailed plans on how to deal with the jail.
Option One would add four floors to Public Safety Building, renovating that facility’s existing space; it’s projected to cost $151.4 million. Option Two, projected at $164.6 million, would expand the Public Safety Building by building an addition on what is now the Sheriff’s Office surface parking lot, and on two adjacent properties on West Wilson Street.
This spring, Parisi said these options were too expensive and would compete with the “true priorities of this community: Cleaning up our lakes. Providing affordable housing. Conservation of our natural resources. Road construction and rehabilitation.”
But in a January 5 opinion column, board chair Sharon Corrigan vowed to include a plan to modernize jail operations in the 2018 budget. On March 23, the county board requested Mead & Hunt break Option One into more phases to spread out the costs. Since Option Two might require the use of eminent domain, it’s no longer considered a viable option. However, the board asked that certain elements from Option Two be included in the first phase of the new plan, such as moving the Huber program out of the Ferris Center on Rimrock Road.
Under Mead & Hunt’s cheaper, third option, the first phase comes in $14 million under the first phase of Option One. Although it’s cheaper, Option Three preserves priorities like shutting down the City County building jail. It also separates youth offenders from the adult population, one of a number of federal mandates that the current jail system does not meet. And it reduces the total number of beds in the Dane County jail system by 91.
Bayrd favors Option One, saying it “gives us everything our hearts desire.” But she concedes that fully funding the jail overhaul in next year’s budget is not a given considering objections from Parisi over high costs. So she would be happy if the board approves Option Three.
“[Option Three] gives us a longer timeline. But by breaking it down into more pieces, you now require more county boards to approve it,” Bayrd says. “It's saying we are going to take this one step at a time. Hopefully, all the pieces get done.”
Dane County Sheriff Dave Mahoney, who runs the jail, supports funding Option Three in the 2018 budget. For years, Mahoney has warned officials of the “inhumane” facility conditions at the City County Building jail, where maximum-security inmates are housed.
“What keeps me up at night, is that one day someone is going to die at the City County Building jail because we waited too long,” Mahoney says. “The [first two phases of Option Three] gets us what we need for the foreseeable future. What happens after that depends upon the priorities of the county.”
In October, the board approved a nearly $5 million, short-term mitigation plan to make “life-saving improvements” at the City County Building jail. The funds will go towards fixing frequent lock malfunctions which trap inmates in their cells for hours, a potentially deadly situation if the jail needs to be evacuated or there is a medical emergency. Filters have already been installed to ensure drinking water at the old jail is free of lead. In the next few months, new fire alarm and smoke control systems will be added. And an estimated $280,000 will also be spent cleaning HVAC ducts and louvers.
But Way says this mitigation plan is only a “Band-Aid” that gets the county “by for a few years.” In official reports, his firm calls the City County Building jail “dangerous” and finds the facility presents “numerous risks and hazards to the staff, inmates, and volunteers.”
“If we do nothing this year, then I'm in the position to continue to manage the jail along with my staff as best we can,” Mahoney says. “And when something horrible occurs, and it will, all I can say is ‘I told you so.’”
If a plan is put in place in the 2018 budget, it will take a year of planning and more than a year of construction until the City County Building is officially decommissioned.
Parisi says the first phase of Option Three “addresses a number of concerns” he had with earlier proposals. “It allows for more mental health treatment and programming space, eliminates solitary confinement and reduces the number of jail beds, making it easier to address the root causes of why people end up in jail in the first place,” Parisi writes in an email.
But with only a few months before the 2018 executive budget proposal is released, the county executive’s office won’t commit to funding even the first phase of Option Three. Josh Wescott, Parisi’s chief of staff, says a new jail facility to address “the needs identified” is only part of the executive's consideration.
“That determination will be made in the coming weeks as [Parisi] evaluates capital budget requests from all county departments,” Wescott writes in an email. “He also views this as an opportunity to comprehensively review the jail’s re-entry services and has begun meeting with community leaders to assess current services and evaluate how they could be improved.”
But Patrick Jablonski, statistician for criminal justice consulting firm Pulitzer/Bogard who assisted Mead & Hunt on its jail report, told the county board on June 15 that a diversion program can only reduce the jail population so much. Compared to similar-sized counties around the country, as well as local governments with the some of the lowest incarceration rates, Jablonski says Dane County is doing an “excellent job” of suppressing the jail population.
“The Dane County criminal system is doing an effective job of managing the jail’s population,” Jablonski said. “There is not much low-hanging fruit, if you will, in terms of reducing the jail’s incarceration rate.”
However, Jablonski said he did find evidence of “clear disparities.” Overall, African American inmates stay in pretrial status 76 percent longer than white inmates, a mean average of nine days longer behind bars. An analysis of bail amounts failed to show a statistical difference in the dollar amount for bail given to white and black inmates. Jablonski says “ability to pay the bail” might be a factor and is an area that should be addressed.
But even under the best case scenario, Jablonski says the number of beds needed at the Dane County jail is around 915 and the average daily population is forecasted to hover just over 750. Bayrd says the numbers show the county needs to stay vigilant on providing more alternatives to incarceration.
“Nevertheless, we need to change our jail space. There are serious infrastructure problems that need to change. The solitary confinement space is inhumane. We need medical beds, mental health space. The [City County Building] jail is literally falling apart, ” Bayrd says. “We will always have a jail in the society we live in. And it’s not an either-or. A new facility doesn’t mean we can’t simultaneously work on diverting people from jail. But this is the right thing to do.”
