County jail guards cite threat of overpopulation

J. Craig Anderson

Wednesday, Oct. 19, 2005 | 7:48 a.m.

The guards at the Clark County Detention Center have managed to avoid being overrun since the facility began overflowing with inmates, but they fear it is only a matter of time.

The detention center's outgoing chief says increased danger of being attacked by prisoners was on a short list of correctional officers' concerns during a recent operational audit.

Chief of Detention Paul Martin, retiring this month after 25 years with the county, appealed to the Clark County Commission Tuesday to consider building more detention facilities before the situation gets even worse.

The detention center's north and south towers contain 2,860 beds, but on Tuesday -- a typical day -- Martin had to find room for more than 3,400 detainees.

About 250 were placed on military cots in barracks-style rooms at the detention center, and the other 300 were taken to "contract beds" at facilities run by Las Vegas, North Las Vegas and Henderson.

The extra space isn't free, Martin said. At $70 per bed, county taxpayers are spending about $20,000 a day to house the excess prisoners.

But those other jails are filling up, too.

"Pretty soon there aren't going to be any beds in the valley for us to rent, and then what are we going to do?" he said.

In fact, some criminals who should be serving time already are being set free, he said. Petty thieves, first-time drug offenders and some traffic criminals are routinely released simply because there is no room.

Martin's fear is that judges will begin letting more serious criminals off the hook if no new facilities are built.

"They'd have to," he said. "They'd have no other choice."

To prevent a total meltdown of the county detention system, Martin estimates 2,000 more beds will be needed within the next five years. Preliminary studies are under way to build a special facility that would house up to 400 misdemeanor offenders, but it's not enough, he said.

The detention center audit, completed this month, included more than 100 interviews with employees and confidential surveys to find the operation's strengths and weaknesses.

In addition to worries about overpopulation, correctional officers also indicated they were reaching a breaking point because there isn't enough staff.

According to the audit, conducted by Matrix Consulting Group of Palo Alto, Calif., the detention center needs about 45 more guards to keep up with the current workload.

Martin said every two weeks he is paying as much as $280,000 in overtime to correctional officers who are overworked, stressed out and exhausted.

The recommended ratio of guards to inmates is 1 to 64, Martin said. At Clark County Detention Center, that ratio is about 1 to 100.

And those aren't just pot smokers and pickpockets, either. Nearly 70 percent are pre-trial or convicted felons.

"We average about 170 people in custody on murder charges every single day," Martin said.