COLDWATER, MI (WTVB) – Generally speaking, overcrowding at the Branch County jail right now is not nearly the problem it was earlier this year but the same can’t be said for the number of females behind bars. Sheriff John Pollack says when the female population stays at 22 or higher for seven straight days, a policy similar to the overcrowding emergency procedure for the facility as a whole kicks in, and if the courts decide not to help out, they transfer the necessary number of women to Calhoun County Corrections to reduce the Branch County female population down to 17.
Monday’s female inmate number was 22, making it eight straight days of at least that many women incarcerated. The jail in Coldwater in the old Maple Lawn Medical Care Facility was designed to hold only 12 females. According to the Sheriff Pollack, this past week alone, of the 27 people booked into the jail, one third of them were women, a real increase from what it used to be.
The chronic overcrowding as well as numerous infrastructure issues facing the aging out of date jail are why county commissioners are on an aggressive time line to place a millage question for the jail on the August 2016 primary election ballot.
