Editorial: Quick fixes won’t help jail

Tuesday, April 4, 2006 | 7:14 a.m.

If the county jail were a motel, a "No Vacancy" sign would be lit up 24/7. In fact, the manager would be tempted to augment the sign with an exclamation point.

On a daily basis the Clark County Detention Center holds at least 350 more inmates than beds. With so many cots spread around, it looks more like an evacuation center than a jail.

Even though built to house 2,859 people, the jail is so crowded that it must also pay to send about 250 inmates a day to lockups in Henderson and North Las Vegas.

The county is considering short-term solutions, including paying to have 50 inmates a day housed in Lincoln County. It is also considering paying to have another 50 inmates a day housed at Casa Grande, which would be a shame. Casa Grande, located west of McCarran International Airport, opened in December as a transitional center for qualified prison inmates. There, they can spend the last three months of their sentences learning skills that will enable them to have a chance of rebuilding their lives upon release. For every jail inmate sent there, one less prison inmate would have this opportunity.

Clark County projections show crowding at the jail getting far worse. By 2010 the jail will be over its capacity by more than a thousand inmates. By 2015 the overcapacity will be 1,900, and by 2025 the overcapacity will reach more than 3,000, the projections show.

Short-term solutions are obviously not going to get the job done. Clark County commissioners and staff should immediately begin planning for a longer-term solution. There may be other solutions, but what springs to mind is that a second jail is needed, and soon.