Before We Expand The Middle River Jail

Our local jail numbers are growing by 10% this year, so
we're sending ever more inmates (all of our women) to
MRRJ, where their daily keep fee goes from $1 to $3.

The following appeared as an Open Forum in today's Daily News-Record:

According to a front page article in the March 26, 2019 DNR, the Middle River Regional Jail (MRRJ) Authority has already budgeted money for a Community Based Corrections Plan, a needs assessment study required by the Commonwealth in order to apply for a 25% state grant for expanding the facility if deemed necessary. According to the DNR, this alone would cost more than $57,000, in addition to a facility planning study for an additional $84,000. Engineering services by the Timmons Group would cost yet another $12,000. 

For a bit of history, Harrisonburg and Rockingham County joined the Middle River Regional Jail Authority in July, 2015, in response to overcrowding at our local jail. The $21.5 million, 10-year deal provided our community with access to 250 MRRJ beds. Up to that time, our locality was spending $1.2 million a year renting around 100 beds at Middle River as a temporary solution. Meanwhile, in spite of our crime rates remaining comparatively low, we keep adding some 10% more inmates annually to these numbers, resulting in still more crowding.

But before we invest in ever more costly jails we should consider the recent experience of the Riverside Regional Jail in Prince George County. Similar to MRRJ, it serves four nearby counties and three adjacent cities. According to a March 5, 2019 piece in the Richmond Times-Dispatch, Riverside is facing a $2.4 million budget operating deficit in the coming fiscal year due to a shortage of inmates.

Why? A major reason is that the Chesterfield County Jail, with around 300 beds of its own, and which has supplied nearly half of RRJ’s inmates, has seen their jail numbers drop by some 34%, resulting in that County’s share of RRJ’s income decreasing from $11.9 million in the current fiscal year to a projected $8.4 million in 2020.

According to the Richmond Times piece, “Chesterfield's sheriff, Karl Leonard, attributed the county's drop in part to rehabilitation programs his department has created for offenders with substance abuse problems and more inmates being diverted by county judges into diversion programs rather than sending them to jail.”

The highly successful Heroin Addiction Recovery Program (HARP) promoted by Sheriff Leonard in his Chesterfield County Jail was designed by the McShin Foundation and has recently been adopted by the Rappahannock/Shenandoah/Warren Regional Jail in Front Royal as well.

John Shinholser, former Board Chair of Rubicon, Inc., Virginia's most comprehensive substance abuse treatment facility, and who with Carol McDaid heads the McShin Foundation, will present a report on the HARP program at the next meeting of our local Community Criminal Justice Board at 4 pm. June 3 on the lower floor of Harrisonburg City Hall. For those interested, the meeting is open to the public.

Reasons for increases in our incarceration numbers are varied and complex, and answers are not easy to come by, but before we invest in ever more steel and concrete cages to house non-violent offenders we need to study every effective alternative possible.