PHOENIX

Phoenix looks for ways to save on jail costs as its tab from Maricopa County keeps rising

Megan Cassidy
The Republic | azcentral.com
Fourth Avenue Jail (current): According to the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office website, the jail at 201 S. Fourth Ave. opened in 2005. It has 2,064 beds.

For more than three decades, the city of Phoenix has been the Maricopa County jails’ top customer.

Phoenix-based inmates make up about 32 percent of the bookings, with the city paying Maricopa County more than $155 million in the past 15 years to house them.

But as jail costs climb, Phoenix officials are searching for ways to take their business elsewhere.

In a subcommittee meeting this week,  Phoenix City Council members explored the idea of night courts, expanding their own facilities and housing inmates in other county jails as cost-saving alternatives to Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s facilities.

“On my first day of business-school strategy class, they said if you have a vendor, and they have a monopoly … you should expect prices to go up,” said  Councilwoman Kate Gallego. “And frankly, these prices are going up faster than other expenses to the city of Phoenix.”

By mid-2016, the cost attached to each inmate booking in a Maricopa County jail will jump to $307 from $286, and to $90 from $85 for each day an inmate is housed thereafter. Phoenix, on average, ponies up $11.7 million annually to the county for its inmates, according to Phoenix figures.

Phoenix is not alone in its concerns about county jail costs. Several Valley cities have weighed opening their own facilities but ultimately determined such a move would be unrealistic.

Phoenix  Councilwoman Thelda Williams said she remembered taking a tour of the Maricopa County jails with former Councilwoman Peggy Bilsten in the late 1990s as the council then explored the idea of Phoenix opening its own facility.

"She came back and dropped the whole thing," Williams said. "It’s extremely expensive, the liability is huge, and until you understand all the needs and circumstances, and all the federal and state regulations that go along with that, I would think it would be cost-prohibitive for us."

Cost-saving alternatives are under consideration

This time around, Phoenix officials are looking at other cost-saving alternatives.

An initial idea was to create a program modeled after one in Tucson. Tucson transports some inmates to the low-cost Santa Cruz County jails rather than to Pima County's. The prospect was all but nixed in Phoenix, however, as any savings in housing inmates in lower-cost neighboring counties would be offset by transportation and other costs.

At a council Public Safety Subcommittee on April 13, council members discussed other programs that could stem the flow of inmates into Maricopa County’s jails.

  • Expand centralized booking.  In 2010, Phoenix opened a centralized booking station to expedite the time officers spent processing suspects and to cut costs that would have had to have been paid to Maricopa County’s jails. Two years later it introduced a Video Initial Appearance Court that allowed some people in custody to appear before a city of Phoenix judge to potentially avoid being booked into county jail. The current court facility can house up to 12 inmates. Officials are looking to expand that facility and add a northern location. Last year, the combination of central booking, home detention and video arraignment saved the city $2.5 million.
  • Open a night court. Phoenix officials spoke briefly of opening a night court in central booking. Judges have the power to release an inmate from jail, thereby cutting housing costs. This option, however, becomes moot during a court’s off-hours.
  • Create more pretrial options.  A number of programs could be expanded that would keep people out of jail. Phoenix could expand its home detention options and allow more people to wear electronic monitors.

In a presentation to the subcommittee, Budget and Research Director Jeff Barton said the city should look into reviewing what crimes amount to a bookable offense.

“When you look at the number of people that are being arrested and what they are being arrested for … sometimes we arrest people and are putting them in jail and they don’t need to be put in jail,” he said. “They could be cited and released.”

Barton said any modifications would come only after an agreement with city police, prosecutors and courts.

  • Private jails? At the end of the session, Councilman Michael Nowakowski suggested that Phoenix may want to take cues from Arizona's prison system. 

“Right now there is not an alternative, so maybe the private sector in the future … there might be something out there,” he said. “So if anybody is listening to us, we need another alternative for the City of Phoenix. Right now we are kinda stuck."

A Catch-22: The fewer inmates, the higher the per-inmate cost

Medical costs, lawsuits, employing detention officers and maintenance all have helped drive up the cost of jails in Maricopa County, as well as one seemingly counterintuitive factor.

When fewer suspects enter the facilities, the county is forced to spread the remaining costs among the remaining inmates.

“It’s a combination of a lot of factors,” said Fields Moseley, communications director for Maricopa County. “But the detention fund is more than $3 million below what we budgeted for this fiscal year, and that is partly due to fewer people being in the jail.”

Moseley said the county also is looking into a number of initiatives in the pretrial realm to keep people in jail for fewer days.

Barton said this shouldn't dissuade city officials from looking into jail alternatives. Any cost bump from investing in alternative programs likely wouldn't last more than a few years.

“It’s really a short-term increase,” he said. “Over time, it rights itself.”