I want to know: How many people does it take to run jail?

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By Jolene Guzman, staff writer
Saturday, May 10, 2008 | 4 comment(s)

Jail staff based on inmates

Q: I want to know about the state-of-the-art jail. How many people does it take to run the jail with its electronic monitoring system and why? How many people are there now?

A: The number of jail staff required depends on inmate population. Coos County Sheriff’s Cpl. Darius Mede, who is in charge of the jail schedule, lists the minimum staff needed at each population level as follows: For a population of 49 or fewer, 23 officers are needed; for a population of 50 to 98, 28 officers are needed; for a population of 99 to 146, 37 officers are needed; and for a population  147 and more, 42 officers are needed.

Mede said the jail adopted the minimum staffing policy in February of 2007, in response to budget cuts.

With a current maximum of 97 beds in the jail, the staffing level is at 28. The schedule is on three, eight-hour shifts per day. All swing and night shifts call for five people. Seven people are required during day shifts during the work week, as officers must accompany inmates to court appearances. Weekend day shifts take six officers.

It’s really not a lot of people,” Mede said. “Before the county cuts, it wasn’t uncommon to have 12 people on a shift.”

Mede added that before cuts, the entire jail was operational, but now only half the blocks are available.

The jail has a monitoring system capable of allowing control room staff an eye on hallways and inside cells, but officers don’t rely on cameras alone, Mede said. The cameras are most useful for monitoring movement within the jail, Mede said. Staff conducts hourly monitoring tours to make sure inmates are in their cells and not having medical problems or in need of other assistance.

“For that, we use our people not the cameras,” Mede said.
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  • esya wrote on May 12, 2008 9:16 PM:

    I work with local jails in Colorado, a state that has very low local tax base and a high local jail population. We have very small, remote jails that run staffs 24/7 with sometimes as few as 3 officers on a shift and less than 7 on day shifts. The transports are sometimes done by federal marshal services. If you have that low of staffing, you can be sure that your local operation will be sued by civil rights groups regularly because the prisoners are guaranteed certain constitutional rights to health and safety operations. The jails also have to provide health services and if they don't you can get sued for that also. So that would just increase your local costs. You might as well run a professional operation and employ some law abiding citizens as pay lawsuits for prisoners. If you don't want prisoners to have legal rights I guess you can move to some dictatorship; I guess the cost of living there would be cheaper.

    Dave wrote on May 11, 2008 7:58 AM:

    I would like to see all the jails and lockups patterned after the one Joe Arpaio runs down in Arizona..No more prisoner rights to live like they werent being punished..Jerks do the crime do the time ..no more treating them like decent humans...make it so they wont ever want to come back..then maybe they will quit doing wrong.

    Lawman wrote on May 10, 2008 11:41 AM:

    People need to get a hold of state Reps and demand that the min 2 day jail sentence be suspended because if a person has a low bac of under 1.5 they should drop the manatory 2 days in jail. Wake up taxpayers MADD had bought the State Reps andwe are paying for it. I've arrested many who don't belong in jail because they had a drink or to after work.

    Dale wrote on May 10, 2008 11:34 AM:

    This is another of coos countys ripoff to the tax payers. A lot of people in the jail are in for 2 to 5 days for DUI . Why not make them work in county pickups trash for there fine instead of locking them up. If they didn't hurt anybody that should give them a choice in what they will do to stay out. Coos County has about 57 to 60 DUI each month so add it up people.

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