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| When the Rockbridge Regional Jail opened in 1988 it had plenty of room to house inmates from surrounding localities. By 2005, 70 percent of the inmates held here were from Rockbridge County. (BRETT HOLTON / The Rockbridge Report) |
Local officials were meeting Thursday afternoon to determine whether to go forward with the expansion of the Rockbridge Regional Jail.
The jail, which serves Rockbridge County, Lexington and Buena Vista, has grappled with overcrowding for several years.
The number of inmates in the facility has actually declined in recent months, but the jail’s supervisor, John Higgins, says that is only temporary.
"Eventually, we’re going to be overcrowded,” he said. “One of the things we’ll have to do is take and farm out prisoners, or have to expand the jail to hold them.”
The jail’s expansion is estimated to cost $28 million, a hefty price tag considering that the county just finished construction of a new $30 million courthouse. But Higgins says the costs would be spread out among several governments.
"Fifty percent of that [funding] would be paid by the state,” he said. “The other would be divided by the three localities on a percentage of their usage.”
When the jail opened in 1988, it operated as a money-maker for the county. As a new facility with plenty of room, it housed inmates from surrounding areas and even federal prisoners, all for a fee. By 2005, however, 70 percent of the jail’s inmates were local. The jail still needed to cover its operational costs, but now the money was coming from county residents’ pockets in the form of increased real estate taxes.
Officials attributed the rise of the local inmate population to new mandatory minimum sentencing laws, stricter sentences from new county judges, and increased effectiveness of the Rockbridge Regional Drug Task Force, which brought in 70 drug offenders in one month alone.
The jail eventually had to force inmates to sleep on floor mattresses when numbers got too high. Officials knew the only remaining option was an eventual expansion.
But local governments now face a shrinking purse. With state-mandated budget cuts sweeping Virginia, money for the jail’s expansion may be even harder to come by.
For the past several months, local officials have been at a standstill on the project. Two consultants have been brought aboard to present a report to the state advocating jail expansion. Higgins is confident that that is a good first step, but he knows the jail is at a crossroads. If the jail doesn’t expand, officials might have to take a new approach, including sending prisoners to other jails.
"It’s either/or at some point,” Higgins said. “When that point may be, nobody knows.”
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