| The numbers are staggering.
An inmate incarcerated at a regional jail
for 13 months awaiting trial costs that county almost $19,000.
It's a
steep amount that most counties can't afford, especially smaller ones
with very tight budgets like Calhoun.
The regional jail bill is still a big ticket item for Calhoun.
Steve Canterbury, the head of the regional jail authority says the
legislature is tackling several bills that could help bring down the costs.
First is the "Rocket Docket."
It calls for decreased time between when an
inmate enters the jail and when his trial comes up in front of a
judge.
The Huntington-Herald Dispatch showed that most of the jail cost to Cabel County is felons waiting to go on trial, serious felons.
In West Virginia, the average wait is three terms or 13 months behind
bars at a regional jail facility.
That is almost $19,000 per inmate.
If that
could be lowered to 7 months per inmate that would save WV counties
$2.5 million dollars a year. That saves individual counties $8,730 per
inmate.
The second bill would add costs on to those filing court cases. Those
who file a criminal case would have to pay an extra 30%.
Those filing a
civil suit 20%.
All that money would go into a fund that would add up to
about $5 million for year that could be spread around to all 55 counties
for inmate costs.
Such a bill would do little to help Calhoun County, or other rural counties.
And the third bill would put non-violent offenders on home confinement
instead of behind bars. The cost would be minimal compared to time
behind bars.
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