Summer heat exposes ailing jail

A month into summer, the thermometer already has hit 90 degrees or higher on 15 days. Attics are heating up faster than a George Foreman Grill. Slurpee sales have tripled.

At the Spokane County Jail, male and female corrections officers, dutifully dressed in bullet- and knife-proof vests, covered by their equally non-breathable polyester-blend uniforms, have roasted on many days. And they’re steamed.

“I get complaints every day,” said Deputy Corrections Officer Jim Huntley, president of Local 492, representing county jail corrections supervisors, sergeants and lieutenants. “I hate to say this, but an officer is going to have to collapse before something happens.”

Insufficient air conditioning has been a hot topic among employees and inmates for years. Inmates can try to cool off by dressing in T-shirts and comfortable clothing. Officers – there are 156 members in Local 492 – wear uniforms and cumbersome gear belts.

Capt. Jerry Brady, jail commander since March 2005, said the air conditioning operates at 75 percent, on good days.

During last month’s heat wave, one deputy showed up for his 10-hour shift carrying a battery-operated fan and a bag of ice attached to his 1½-inch thick vest. The less creative officers suffered, knowing no matter how much roll-on they applied, they’d still be sweating before roll call.

The question is, can a 20-year-old building, with a ventilation system that has been abused by inmates, work properly during AC season?

Brady, whose first-floor office also reaches the toasty temperature level on 90-plus degree days, has his doubts.

“It’s like adding air conditioning to a ‘57 Chevy, but it will never be as good as the air conditioning unit of a 2006,” Brady said.

Brady said although the jail was built in 1986, things don’t work properly because everything (elevators, food services, steam plants, boilers, heating and AC) seems to break quicker in a jail because it runs all day, every day of the year.

“There’s more wear and tear,” he added.

There are also more bodies than the early years, and that boils down to more heat.

Designed to accommodate 470 inmates, the building handled an average daily population of 622 in 2005, Brady said. This year, the average daily population has been 630 with a high of 711.

“The jail is wearing out, pure and simple,” said Brady. “In a perfect world, we’d have a brand new facility that would take into consideration the future population in Spokane.”

However, the earliest a new jail proposal is expected to be on the ballot is 2008.

Ron Oscarson, Spokane County facility director, said he routinely sends maintenance workers to the jail to fix the temperature. Oscarson said that by size, the jail is about 20 percent of the county campus, which also includes the public safety facilities and courthouse. But maintenance workers spend about 40 percent of their time there.

In June, a compressor broke at the jail and the air conditioning ran at about half capacity. It took almost two weeks to get the part.

“It was unbearable, absolutely horrible,” said Deputy Corrections Officer Barbara Hammer.

The booking room, the hub of most activity and located next to the hot and stuffy auto sally port, draws the most complaints. When the temperature was about 90 degrees outside at 4:10 p.m. on July 5, it was 79.8 degrees in the booking room, as reported by a maintenance employee.

The west side of the sixth floor topped out at 80.6 while the coolest spot, 68.4 degrees, was registered on the east side of the fifth floor,

“It’s bad enough to sit around, but we’re running around, sometimes rolling on the floor,” said Hammer, who has worked at the jail for 17 years. “And it’s not like we can open windows.”

Part of the problem, both Brady and Oscarson said, is that inmates abuse the facility.

When inmates don’t like air blowing on them in cold weather, some close off heat registers by packing the vents with toothpaste. Others use toilet paper, Sgt. Aaron Anderton said.

“It’s amazing some of the things we will find,” said Oscarson, who was named facility director nine months ago. “But when a person has 24 hours a day, he can be quite destructive.”

“I’m not suggesting 20 years is that old, but it gets used 24/7, and people who use it aren’t the most friendly to the building,” said Oscarson.

The filters are changed every three months, but it doesn’t help the system perform better.

“We can go in there and clean things out,” Brady said, “But they (inmates) are right back in there (plugging up the heating system) by the time you’re in the next room.”

Newly appointed Spokane County Sheriff Ozzie Knezovich said he’s aware the heavily used booking room can reach 80 degrees.

He and Brady are looking at ways to make sure everything is done to keep the air-conditioning system in “good operating order,” Brady said.

“I’m kind of more concerned about the officers, because the inmates don’t have to wear those vests and they can go down to a comfortable amount of clothing,” Knezovich said.

Oscarson, meanwhile, said he will try to stay ahead of the maintenance game.

“We can’t anticipate when a compressor is going to go out,” he said. “Naturally, nothing ever breaks down when the temperature is 65 and perfect outside.”