By Nicole Mooradian
The Rockbridge Regional Jail seems ready to burst at its seams. Since the jail opened in 1988, the average daily number of prisoners has tripled.
The county built the facility with 56 beds, but a Virginia practice of “double-bunking” - that is, two beds to each cell with enough space - brings the number of beds to around 100. Most of the time, the beds are full.
“We’re overcrowded,” Buena Vista City Sheriff Randy Hamilton said.
Rockbridge County Sheriff R. W. Day agreed.
“[Overcrowding] is something that needs to be looked into,” he said. “We have inmates sleeping on the floor.”
The Rockbridge Regional Jail Commission consists of representatives from Rockbridge County, Buena Vista, and Lexington, with Glasgow and Goshen sending representatives in alternate years. Last year, the commission performed a feasibility study, the first step toward expansion of the jail. According to the study, the remodeled jail would have to have 184 cells to receive the usual 50 percent funding from the state. Double-bunking means such a jail would hold around 350 inmates.
The proposed expansion would cost an estimated $25 million, with the state paying for half. The localities that use the jail would have to split the remaining $12.5 million.
It could be worse, though. If the commission builds a jail that is not as large as the state requires, the state will withdraw funding for construction and operations.
Lexington City Manager Jon Ellestad, however, believes the size of the proposed remodel may be excessive.
“It’s far larger than I had hoped it would be,” he said. “[But] we definitely need an expansion.”
Before the facility became too crowded, the jail also housed federal prisoners for extra income. That practice changed in the early 1990s when Virginia decided to decrease state funding to facilities housing federal prisoners.
After that, the Rockbridge jail began to house prisoners from other localities for extra income. That practice ended when the jail began to get too crowded with inmates from Rockbridge County, Goshen, Glasgow, and Lexington.
“For the past three years or so, that [practice] has been eliminated because we’re too full,” Ellestad said.
Nevertheless, no matter what happens, members of the commission believe they must find some way to ease the overcrowding at the local jail, and expansion seems to be the way to go.
“It’s going to have to be done, that’s all,” Hamilton said.
Produced by Washington and Lee journalism students.
Lead supervisor: Prof. Claudette Artwick
Reporting supervisors:
Technical supervisor: Michael Todd