Fayette pays to farm out more prisoners

A swelling inmate population forced the Fayette County Prison to ship out 15 more inmates this week when the population reached 222 on Monday, 40 inmates above the maximum capacity for the 19th-century facility.

The county now has 25 inmates housed at Greene and Cambria county jails - with sentencing for criminal defendants scheduled for the next three days.

Warden Larry J. Medlock said the population was at 188 Wednesday, still six over the 182 capacity. While seven inmates are scheduled to leave shortly, it's unknown how many inmates will be committed to the facility in upcoming sentencings.

'It's a fluctuating situation,' he said.

Fayette County commissioners had hoped to keep the growing inmate population at bay with a 28-bed expansion opened in June 2000, and then house the growing population in a proposed annex.

But the sudden explosion in inmate population has the commissioners considering an annex that is more than twice as large and twice as expensive as originally planned.

The annex - originally planned to house 30 inmates at a cost of $1.7 million, may now increase to a $3.6 million adaptation proposed by Commissioner Sean Cavanagh that would house 80 or more.

'It's common sense. It costs less to build more now than later,' he said.

Cavanagh discussed the annex plans with Commissioner Vincent Vicites, who said he favored waiting for an ongoing study to be completed.

'I'm going to wait and see what they have to say,' said Vicites.

Housing the 25 defendants elsewhere costs $1,075 per day, and commissioners have budgeted only $187,500 for the year to house inmates elsewhere.

Since Jan. 31, the county has had at least 10 inmates housed elsewhere.

'It's an uncontrollable expense. We certainly aren't going to do anything but incarcerate these people,' said Vicites.

According to Medlock, the average monthly population at the facility was 172 in 2000.

The average increased from 150 in 1999 and 132 in 1998.

The prison, built in 1888, was designed to house 66 inmates.