Overcrowded Middleton jail a house in need of correction

MIDDLETON – When the Essex County House of Correction was first opened in February 1991, it was built to house 550 inmates.Today, over 1,200 men call the Middleton jail their home.Paul Fleming, spokesperson for Essex County Sheriff Frank Cousins, doesn’t like to use the word “overcrowding.” Rather, he says jail staff are taking every measure they can to address the population issue.”We’re al-ways looking for creative ways to deal with the numbers we have,” Fleming said. “We’ve been dealing, in the last several months, with the largest prison population in the history of the Essex County Sheriff’s Department.”There were 1,276 inmates housed at the correctional facility on Wednesday. Two weeks earlier, approximately 1,266 prisoners were held there.Lately, Fleming says some inmates were forced to sleep in beds inside the jail’s gymnasium, specifically on the basketball court.The population changes daily. “The numbers fluctuate,” he said.The jail hasn’t always needed to house prisoners in the gym, but Fleming says if the population gets too high, some inmates have to sleep there.He also says the number of prisoners sleeping in the gym has never exceeded 100, and sometimes there are only a handful that do. And they never sleep on the floor.Fleming says jail staff will separate prisoners who may be from rival street gangs in order to prevent assaults and explains safety is always a concern.”We are in the business of risk management,” Fleming said. “They (jail staff) were trained to look for problems and deal with problems beforehand.”Not long after the jail first opened in 1991, prisoners were forced to double-up in assigned living areas. In the last year, the prison converted an old tool shed into a housing facility for about 80 inmates, Fleming said.Because the population is so high, prison officials often suggest less-violent criminals be placed on home-confinement electronic monitoring brace-lets and ask that those who need alcohol or drug addiction treatment be placed in sober houses or halfway houses.”If we can place them on an electronic bracelet, we’ll do that depending on the charges they have,” Fleming said.Fleming points out the term “correctional facility” is used for a reason – meaning Middleton offers treatment to inmates addicted to drugs or alcohol, which he says make up a majority of the jail population.”There is a plan for each inmate,” he said. The facility is in charge of “care, custody and rehabilitation of criminal offenders.”Fleming says it costs taxpayers $24,918 per year to house one jail inmate. The average stay of a prisoner at Middleton is between six and nine months, he said.For years, state officials have discussed plans to change the state’s prison system by emulating other states and creating a “regional lock up facility” that could alleviate Middleton’s population problem.A recent study indicated the best place to build a regional facility would be on the same grounds as the current Essex County House of Corrections in Middleton, Fleming said. Years earlier, officials wanted to place the facility in Lawrence.The facility would house inmates who were recently arrested by local police and before they are transported to court for an arraignment, in most cases.Right now, many people who are held for short periods of time are sent to Middleton – the same facility that houses men already convicted of crimes. Many of the temporary inmates would be placed in a regional lockup if the plan comes to fruition.State officials set aside funding for a regional lock up nearly a decade ago and the funds are still available, Fleming said.”Where that process sits right now, I cannot definitively tell you,” said Fleming, who adds that plans for the future facility have changed as governors have come and gone.