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Heroin-related crimes cause overcrowding in Portage County Jail
Alex Kobryn

The Portage County Jail is divided into two sections. The first is a hallway of upper and lower tiers that contains 48 cells. This is for the general population: misdemeanors, low-grade felonies and drug offenses. The second section is similar except it contains a barrier of jail doors between the inmates and the correctional officers (COs). This is the maximum facility which houses the worst of the worst inmates: those with behavioral problems and those who committed rape, robbery and murder.

Ten years ago, each cell contained one inmate. Today, there are often two inmates per cell with more inmates dispersed across the floor. The heroin epidemic that has taken over Portage County has caused overpopulation in the jail.

“We cannot deal with that kind of population”

The heroin epidemic began about four or five years ago, said David Doak, the Portage County sheriff, when the department noticed a spike in the female inmate population. The jail has a maximum capacity of 34 females that never used to be surpassed. At first, when the jail went over that number, Doak thought it was a short-term trend, but the numbers never returned to “normal.” That’s when the correlation between the number of female inmates and heroin-related crimes was realized and when the size of the jail became an issue that Doak needed to deal with.

“They include everything from shoplifting right up through homicide: paper crimes, bed checks, burglary, theft, homes being broken into. All to make money to support a habit,” Doak said. “The criminal activity associated with it is what’s causing the jail overpopulation.”

The male population had also increased, but the increase in the female population was drastic. The maximum total capacity for both males and females is 218, Doak said. Eighty to 85 percent of the population is incarcerated for some sort of addiction problem, either drugs or alcohol. It has reached the point where inmates are forced to sleep on rubber mats that officers refer to as boats.

“One day I walked in here and we had 78 females. We cannot deal with that kind of population,” Doak said.

In 2011, Portage County attempted to pass a property tax to expand the jail, but it didn’t work. Finally, the overcrowding has gotten so bad that commissioners passed a sales tax. The jail staff is currently looking at several different ways to approach the project. One was a renovation of the current jail space that would add more bed space. That solution came with its own problems.

“People live in this building. They’re here around the clock, 365 days a year,” Doak said. “If we have to do any construction, we’d have to move people somewhere, and the cost of shipping them out if we send them to another jail is just too costly.”

A second option is expansion. According to Doak, the Portage County Jail was originally designed to accommodate the addition of more cells. It’s as easy as extending one side of the building, then knocking down the wall in between the new and old sections. The sheriff hopes revenue from the newly imposed tax can be used to do this, but he says things aren’t moving as fast as he’d hoped.

Another issue that comes with overpopulation is fighting between inmates. When a person arrives at the jail, Doak said, he or she fills out paperwork and is assessed to determine a compatible cellmate. But this doesn’t prevent outbursts of frustration when space becomes limited and feelings of claustrophobia take over.

And while female correctional officers can oversee both female and male cells, male correctional officers can only oversee male cells, which leads to staffing problems.

[pullquote]We are so far behind the curve on this, I don’t know if we’ll catch up with it[/pullquote]

“That makes the problem worse because we have to have so many female COs on duty 24/7, 365 to oversee that female population,” Doak said. “Additionally, when that population gets to a certain level, it takes two of them. So there’s overtime involved.”

He said programs were started in the jail in an effort to initiate rehabilitation, but even the time spent in jail is not enough to detoxify an opioid addict and convince them to remain clean after release. It’s “big money for the drug cartel,” Doak said, “(and) youths are using on a path where they wind up in jail or in the grave.” But the department still constantly tries to educate and bring awareness.

“The deaths associated with it are incredible. They have far surpassed traffic fatalities,” Doak said. “We are so far behind the curve on this [epidemic], I don’t know if we’ll catch up with it.”

The heroin epidemic has taken over law enforcement and there seems to be no light at the end of the tunnel, at least for Doak.

“During my tenure, my career, I doubt I’ll see much improvement. It’s that far out of control.”

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