Dear Editor,
The BG Independent published an article on January 30 about the Wood County sheriff’s proposal to renovate and expand the county jail. I’m deeply concerned about what I read. Is it possible to provide a link to the proposal given to the county commissioners justifying the renovation and expansion? I think it would be good for the public to have a better understanding of the pros and cons of undertaking such a great public expense or whether it is necessary to expand the jail at all. I don’t know all the facts about any legitimate space problems facing the Wood County jail specifically, but I am quite knowledgeable about the subject in general. I study pretrial processes and the use of jails as part of my scholarly research and the county’s problems are not unique.
Here’s some background to frame my concerns. According to jail census data collected by the federal government in 1999 and 2013 (the most recent year publically available for Wood County), the population size and composition of the Wood County jail has changed dramatically over time, all while crime rates dropped and the county population changed little. I present raw numbers and rates where appropriate. These data can be examined easily through Vera Institute.
In 1999, the population of Wood County was 120,869 people. The average daily population of the Wood County jail was approximately 92 people. Approximately 1/3 of inmates were detained pretrial, meaning that they were unconvicted, and about 2/3 were convicted and serving their sentence. The overall rate of incarceration per 100,000 county residents, a common metric used to report crime and incarceration rates, was about 76 jail detainees per 100,000 citizens.
In 2013, the population of Wood County was 128,403. The average daily population of the jail was approximately 152 people. Approximately 60% of inmates were unconvicted and detained pretrial and 40% were convicted and serving their sentences. The overall rate of incarceration was about 118 per 100,000.
Two main findings emerge from these data. First, the rate of jail incarceration in Wood County (importantly, this accounts for changes in the county population) grew 55% between 1999 and 2013 even while reported crime rates went down. Second, the composition of the jail population shifted from being mostly convicted people to being mostly unconvicted people. It’s unclear from the data whether the unconvicted people are local arrestees or people housed by Wood County for other jurisdictions for a fee.
A serious problem that has led to many lawsuits across the country is that a growing share of jail populations are unconvicted people. That is, Wood County is not alone. A raft of empirical research shows that pretrial detention is overused and often unnecessary, extremely harmful to detainees, does little to protect the public and actually appears to cause crime, and is very expensive. Furthermore, the vast majority of the unconvicted people are detained simply because they don’t have the money to pay a bail bond to be released while they await adjudication. Basically, they are being punished because they are poor. The common name for this problem is “wealth-based detention.” It’s been found to be unconstitutional by many federal courts, but remains common practice nationwide nonetheless. From the sheriff’s website, it appears that Wood County uses money bail and that there are people in our jail ostensibly because they cannot afford to pay their assigned bond. The ACLU of Ohio has a bail reformcampaign this year with some useful info on the issues. The conservative Buckeye Institute also wants to reform bail. This gets me to the proposal to renovate and expand the jail.
I understand that the sheriff might be under pressure to deal with a growing number of women, medical problems, and drug issues. Jails are often constrained by the physical design of facilities. But there are two issues I don’t really see addressed in the article.
First, are there people in the jail (unconvicted or convicted) who don’t really need to be there such to open up space for other people who absolutely need to be there? What strategies have the sheriff, prosecutor, and judges used to reduce any unnecessary pretrial detention or post-conviction incarceration? Does the use of money bail contribute to growing pretrial detention? The sheriff, prosecutor, and judges set the rules for arrest, charging, and detention policy in Wood County. That is, the changes in the jail population size and composition over time are to some extent under their control. Is it possible that the jail does not need to be expanded and that we might change who (how) we detain to fit within the existing jail?
Second, the sheriff argues that increasing the size of the jail will allow Wood County to import inmates from other counties, collecting fees, and help pay for the expansion. This is highly problematic for a number of reasons, least of which is that it assumes continued growth of inmates to be imported. It also treats incarceration as a business and likely incentivizes more incarceration. It also reduces pressure to think critically about whether people need to be incarcerated. There are a number of reports on these kinds of problems.
I’m hoping that you might provide some more information for readers to shed light on what is happening at the Wood County jail. It would help the county and its citizens to make more informed decisions about the very expensive proposed jail expansion.
Stephen Demuth
Department of Sociology
Bowling Green State University
