With inmates locked up for longer periods, Anne Arundel County's two jails are stretched to the limit and officials say building expansions may be needed in the next few years.
While the annual number of inmates at the Jennifer Road Detention Center in Annapolis and the Ordnance Road Correctional Center in Glen Burnie has hovered around 11,000, their average stay has risen from 35 to 42 days in the past five years, said Robin R. Harting, superintendent of the county's detention facilities. An inability to make bail and longer sentences are a few of the reasons for the rise.
The result: Their average daily population has grown 13 percent over the past two years, with the jails seeing particular crowding on the weekends, and a shortage of quarters for problem inmates and for women.
"It's irresponsible not to think in terms of expansion needs," Harting said.
A $200,000 study that began this spring is looking at likely future needs, what the options and likely costs are, and potential grants to help pay for construction. The report, by the Pennsylvania architectural firm of Crabtree, Rohrbaugh & Associates, is expected by summer's end, said county spokeswoman Pam Jordan.
The maximum-security jail in Annapolis, a renovated 40-year-old structure where people awaiting trial make up the bulk of the population, sits on 8 acres that also holds a county gasoline filling station and is a section of a larger parcel of county property. Jordan said that the report could say that adding floors and raising the roof are the only options.
The Glen Burnie jail, a medium- and minimum-security facility mostly for sentenced inmates and women awaiting trial, opened in 1998 on 20 acres of a much larger county-owned tract. It probably has enough room for an addition or separate building, Jordan said.
The current budget provides $863,000 for more bathrooms and showers within the Glen Burnie facility to help accommodate the people sentenced to weekends-only. Many weekends, more than 100 Friday-night-to-Sunday inmates are there.
Future budgets recognize the jail expansion anticipated in a decade-old master plan. The budgets tentatively list $590,000 for design in the fiscal year 2009 and $6.2 million for construction the next year, both at the Annapolis facility, Jordan said.
That would be followed by two years of outlay for the Glen Burnie center. Tentative plans call for $793,000 for design in the fiscal year 2010 and $9.6 million for construction the following year, she said.
