No room at the jails

David Kihara

Thursday, Oct. 27, 2005 | 6:48 a.m.

Authorities will soon begin housing the Las Vegas Valley's federal prisoners in other states because there is not enough space for them in the local jails.

The U.S. Marshals Service in Las Vegas is contracting with Corrections Corporation of America to move about 50 inmates to jails in San Diego and Florence, Ariz., within the next month because of the lack of local space, according to Fidencio Rivera, chief deputy U.S. Marshal in Las Vegas.

Within a year the Marshals Service could be moving as many as 100 federal prisoners a day to California or Arizona, Rivera said.

"This may have a huge impact on the federal court system," Rivera said.

The financial effect will include higher costs for housing prisoners as well as higher costs for federal public defenders to stay in contact with clients. The human effect will include prisoners having a harder time coordinating their defense with their lawyers, and they will be farther away from their families and friends in Southern Nevada.

Dan Bogden, U.S. attorney for Nevada, said at least the federal prisoners will be behind bars. If the inmates aren't sent somewhere, the lack of space may prompt some federal magistrates to release some people while they await their trials on federal charges, Bogden said.

"If there is no bed space, what are they supposed to do?" he said.

There are about 480 federal inmates in Southern Nevada on any given day. North Las Vegas Detention Center currently holds 225 federal inmates and Las Vegas City Jail has 264, Rivera said. It costs the federal government $72 a day to house inmates at Las Vegas City Jail. The contract with North Las Vegas is being negotiated, but the federal government has been paid $72 a day to house inmates at the detention center, he said.

Rivera said it will cost $75.98 a day to house inmates in Florence. That includes transportation costs.

In San Diego the costs are slightly different. The Marshals Service pays a fixed rate of $98 per prisoner for the first 300 prisoners and then $68 for each additional prisoner, Rivera said.

Moving federal inmates 330 miles to San Diego or 356 miles to Florence could hinder defense attorneys because they need constant contact with clients to discuss cases during the pretrial and presentencing periods, said Franny Forsman, who is in charge of the federal public defender system in the valley.

Also, the costs of traveling out of state to meet with clients "is going to drive the costs to our office up," Forsman said.

Inmates who are in the pretrial and prepleading stage of their case -- and need the most contact with their attorney -- will the last to be taken out of state, Rivera said.

Chief U.S. District Judge Philip Pro and others have been calling for the government to build a federal jail in the valley.

There are 12 federal metropolitan detention facilities in the United States, including three on the West Coast and one in Hawaii.

Carla Wilson, spokeswoman for the federal Bureau of Prisons in Washington, said Monday that there are no plans to build a federal jail in Southern Nevada. The federal prison camp at Nellis Air Force Base, which is a low-security prison, is slated to be closed in early 2006, she said.

In the past, the U.S. Marshals Service has said the prison camp at Nellis would not be suitable for its pretrial detainees because it is a low-security facility.

The prisoners held by the Marshals Service are flight risks or are considered dangerous to the community, Rivera said. And there are no plans for upgrading the facility to make it a maximum-security jail for federal prisoners, he said.

David Kihara can be reached at 259-2330 or at davidk@lasvegassun.com