COLDWATER, MI (WTVB) – Branch County Sheriff John Pollack has declared the county’s third jail overcrowding emergency of 2015. Sheriff Pollack made the move on Friday, a day after the lockup had reached 7 straight days with the inmate population exceeding 100% of its rated design capacity, which is 142 prisoners. The latest situation at the county jail developed starting on July 24th with 151 inmates and peaked at 162 four days later and again on July 30th.
Yesterday, the prisoner count was placed at 153. On Friday, the Sheriff notified the local court judges by letter of the emergency as well as the prosecutor’s office, county commissioners and other police agencies in the county. If the overcrowding persists for more than a couple of weeks, the judges usually order a release of inmates to reduce the jail population by 20% of capacity as regulations require with sentence reductions or lower bonds. In Branch County, that means the prisoner count has to go down to 127. An emergency declaration at the jail in February lasted 3 weeks. Another one was barely avoided in April before the second declaration happened on May 28th. Last year, emergencies were declared on four different occasions.
At a Branch County Board of Commissioners July 16th strategic planning session, constructing a new jail emerged as one of the county’s top priorities. Issues that were identified with the jail included the growing female inmate population and additional staffing because of the layout and age of the building. The Sheriff’s Department and jail have been located in the former Maple Lawn Medical Care facility for more than two decades. The discussion on how to fund a new jail with a millage or bonds was put on hold until the completion this month of an energy study examining all of the county’s buildings.
