Garfield County Jail Administrator says Jail is over Capacity

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According to Garfield County Jail Administrator Ben Crooks, the Garfield County Jail is at 140% designed capacity. Crooks says that the jail has not been under capacity since 2011.

Being overcrowded has caused new problems at the jail, Crooks said that “anytime you exceed the capacity of the jail in itself that means you are putting 3 people in a cell that can only hold 2”.

“Crooks also said that”incidents increase when that happens by virtue of people’s stress levels going up”. Crooks has a solution to deal with the overcrowding in the jail and that is an expansion to house 80 more inmates that Crooks expects to cost 8.5 million dollars after speaking to consultants.

The plan in place to pay for this expansion would be to add a county-wide sales tax increase of 0.3%. That would that for every 100 dollars spent, 30 cents would go towards the Jail expansion.

To get the funding Crooks will need to have it approved by the Garfield County Commission. Click on the link below to listen to the full interview.

https://soundcloud.com/derek-darr-389435489/garfield-county-jail-interview-edit-01?utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing