By Jane Prendergast
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Some women who commit crimes in Hamilton County are serving as little as 30 percent of their sentences because there isn't enough jail space to hold them.

Hamilton County Sheriff Simon Leis wants to build a new facility for female inmates due to unsuitable conditions at the Justice Center and other jail facilities. (Glenn Hartong photo)

In the last nine months, Sheriff Simon Leis has sent 106 female prisoners home before serving all their time. That includes 10 who got out on early release Jan. 22.

The problem: a 28 percent increase in the number of female inmates over the past decade.

While Hamilton County's jails have long been crowded, the sheriff hasn't had to release any male inmates early since 1995. But some women are avoiding two-thirds of their sentences.

"Something has to be done,'' Leis said. "This problem is not going away.''

Leis said the county's four jail buildings, which house about 2,300 men and women, no longer have room to move men around to accommodate the growth in female inmates. He wants another 1,500-bed jail that would house both women and men.

Leis, who is running for re-election in November, has been talking about building a new jail for much of his 16 years in the job. But there are challenges:

• Hamilton County's $257.7 million 2004 general fund is down from last year's $258.6 million.

•  Getting county commissioners committed to the project.

•  Some county officials argue that bigger, newer jails may not be the best solution for a burgeoning population of women inmates.

Smaller facilities with alternative programs, and private jails that charge per diem for prisoners, have become popular alternatives to building costly jails. County Administrator David Krings said he'd like to explore those options.

For example, the county could use home-incarceration and programs that house substance abusers, Krings suggested. The sheriff runs two substance abuse programs now - in Mount Auburn and East Walnut Hills.

In 2003, the county's average female inmate count hit 271. That's nearly triple the average of 100 women who stayed in the Justice Center downtown in its first year, 1985.

Even back then, the Justice Center, the largest of four county jails, was crowded.

Juggling prisoners to prevent crowding has its limits.

Men and women have to be housed so they can't see each other. Violent prisoners can't be kept near inmates incarcerated for such offenses as drunken driving. And inmates with mental health issues sometimes must be housed separately.

Underlying problems

Many of the women prisoners come in with mental health and substance-abuse problems, said Joseph Schmitz, Leis' corrections director.

More women everywhere are being arrested for crimes like theft, shoplifting and fraud, said Meda Chesney-Lind, a University of Hawaii-Manoa professor who studies women and crime.

The number of women behind bars also is increasing because of mandatory arrest laws that force officers to charge both the woman and the man involved in domestic fights. "In general, as a nation, we're more willing to lock people up than we used to be," Chesney-Lind said.

County officials listen when the sheriff complains.

But they aren't ready to promise they'll start the unpopular and expensive process of building a new jail.

Leis and his chief deputy, Sean Donovan, met with Commissioner Todd Portune about two months ago to talk about crowding.

"We need to have a more detailed discussion,'' Portune said. "The time has come for us to fully understand the issues involved.''

Leis said he hasn't recently studied how much the jail he wants would cost. But he said he knows it'll be much more, maybe even triple, the 1992 bid of $50 million for a proposed jail on the site of the old workhouse in Camp Washington.

After spending more than $8 million in site acquisition, plans and demolition, the project failed for lack of commissioners' support. The site now houses the River City Correctional Center, a 200-bed state prison that opened in 1998 for nonviolent felony offenders.

Jim Urling, chairman of the Coalition Opposed to Additional Spending and Taxes, said Friday the group would monitor Leis' pursuit of a new jail, but that he wanted get more information.

Minority jail population

Almost nine of every 10 jail inmates are men, but the percentage of women increased between 1995 and 2002, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.

The picture varies at Greater Cincinnati jails. In Boone County, for example, officials say they have not seen a noticeable increase in female prisoners. But that might be, in part, because the jail no longer houses women charged with minor felonies for the state of Kentucky. Those women are now transferred to state facilities.

At Ohio's prisons, the number of women has been steady, at about 2,800, for at least seven years. Women make up 6 percent of Ohio's total incarcerated population.

Krings said he and Court Administrator Mike Walton have started analyzing what crimes the women are charged with as a step toward possibly developing specialized housing facilities.

Of the 10 women released Jan. 22, all but one was convicted of solicitation, possession of drug paraphernalia, or both.

Capt. Vince Demasi, commander of Cincinnati's investigations unit, for years has been suggesting a program for prostitutes. There's so little substance abuse help available for those women that officers keep arresting the same ones over and over, he said.

"What we really need," Demasi said, "is a place where these women can stay a while and get some help.''

Leis isn't opposed to more treatment options.

"Treatment's fine,'' he said. "But treatment doesn't solve the space problem.''

Hamilton Co. jails

Hamilton County has four places to house inmates awaiting trial and serving sentences:

 The Justice Center: Opened in 1985 downtown as the county's only general-population jail for men and women. It also holds juveniles whose cases have been bound over to adult court.

Capacity: 1,422, but a federal court order limits it to 1,240.

 Queensgate - Opened in 1992 as a temporary site. Officials intended to use it for two to three years until a new jail was built in Camp Washington.

Capacity: 822, all men.

 Reading Road Opened in 1991 in a former Mount Auburn car dealership.

Capacity: 150, men and women in drug and alcohol treatment.

 Turning Point Opened in 1990 in Mount Auburn in a turn-of-the-century building previously used by the Ohio Department of Corrections.

Capacity: 60, all men with multiple drunken-driving convictions.

---

E-mail jprendergast@enquirer.com