CHARLESTON - There is not enough room in West Virginia's jails and prisons for its inmates, and jail officials say the overpopulation issue is expected to get worse in the coming years.
As a result, the West Virginia Legislature is being asked to take action.
According to the latest statistics released by the West Virginia Department of Military Affairs and Public Safety and the West Virginia Division of Corrections, the population in regional jails and prisons in West Virginia as of Dec. 31 was 6,059. The current prison capacity in the state is 5,300.
"It's at a critical state," said Joseph Thornton, DMAPS' deputy secretary for operations and media. "If it's not dealt with ... I'd hate to think what will happen."
Thornton said Division of Corrections prisons currently are holding about 1,200 more inmates than they have room for. As a result, many of the regional jails, including the Northern Regional Jail in Moundsville, are housing DOC inmates. Thornton said it costs the state about $20 million a year to house DOC convicts.
In January, James Spears, cabinet secretary for DMAPS, spoke to the Joint Standing Committee on Government Organization regarding the issue. According to Spears, prison population has steadily increased since 1990, when the population was 1,575 prisoners. During his presentation, Spears told the committee that the Criminal Justice Statistical Analysis Center is projecting the prison population in West Virginia will be 8,530 by 2012.
One remedy Spears suggested to the committee is the construction of a new, 1,200-bed prison, which he estimated would cost between $150 million and $200 million. He also noted that 85 percent of current jail and prison inmates are being held for non-violent crimes, suggesting rehabilitation through treatment programs for those offenders as another solution.
In a correctional views report issued by the DOC at the end of 2008, the top five crimes committed by DOC inmates for fiscal 2008 were:
That report, which was compiled through statistics from the WV DOC FY 07-08 Annual Report and a daily inmate count, among other sources, also reported that the total prison commitments for calendar year 2008 were 3,273, while the total number of prisoners released - including parolees, dischargees, escapees, those who died while incarcerated, court-ordered releasees, pardonees, medical respite and diagnostic releasees - was 2,698.
The overpopulation issue is one the government has been aware of for some time. In a symposium held in November, members of all three branches of state government, as well as representatives from other state departments, made five recommendations to combat the overpopulation issue:
Thornton said many of those recommendations could serve as solutions, but he noted that solving the problem will not be easy.
"If we found the magic answer to the prison problem, the jails would be under capacity," Thornton said. "We're the keepers of the inn. Other folks arrest them, other folks sentence them, we just house them."
Still, he added that public safety is paramount to DMAPS, and that it will always ensure that communities will be protected from dangerous criminals.