Geiger population hits record
With a record 590 inmates, the Geiger Corrections Center was too understaffed Monday to accommodate the 30 Spokane County Jail prisoners officials wanted to transfer.
The previous high was approximately 550 last summer. The maximum capacity is 610.
Sheriff Ozzie Knezovich and Geiger director Leon Long viewed the problem as relatively minor in the short term but potentially serious if not resolved in the long run. They were taking a wait-and-see approach.
Inmate populations ebb and flow daily, so the situation could be better or worse today.
“Right now, I believe we’re roughly 75 inmates from being at capacity here (in the jail),” Knezovich said. “We may be able to squeeze in another 40 before we have to take a look at other measures.”
Those other measures might include putting mattresses in the sally port or turning away some nonviolent offenders, he said.
Another possibility, if the Spokane Airport Board agrees, is a $5.5 million proposal to house 120 to 240 more inmates in temporary buildings at Geiger in the Spokane International Airport business park. It’s a delicate issue, because the airport board wants to evict the minimum-security corrections center by 2013.
Knezovich and other county officials are considering use of tentlike buildings from a company called Sprung Instant Structures. The Sprung buildings are a modern version of the Quonset hut, using layers of vinyl, fabric and insulation over aluminum frames
The $5.5 million cost estimate includes purchase, installation and hiring more guards.
The project would be a stop-gap measure until the current jail could be expanded or replaced. County officials also are working on a jail construction bond measure.
“The timeline calls for going to the voters, if everything goes all right, in November 2008,” Knezovich said.
He said the jail is averaging 670 to 680 inmates but occasionally is able to reduce the number to 630 by transferring prisoners to Geiger. Geiger has its own capacity problem, though, Long said.
“We don’t want to go over a certain level because we don’t want to endanger our staff or the inmates,” Long said, noting there are no locks on the barracks in the former military base.
Long said Geiger has added about 100 beds to its capacity over the past year, but staffing hasn’t kept pace. The corrections center has a full-time staff of 65, but only eight were on duty during Monday’s day shift because of vacations and other absences. “We’ve been having to mandate overtime, and the staff is tired,” Long said. “It’s time to put the brakes on.”
He said 10 more staff members are being hired, but testing and training the new employees will take five to six weeks. “The concern, of course, is that we’re not even to summer yet and that’s when the jail gets really full,” Long said.