There may be snow outside, but the population at the Lancaster County Jail is downright summerlike — a concern to jail officials looking ahead to the warmer months.
“It’s unprecedented numbers,†said county Corrections Director Brad Johnson. “I would say if we’re going into April and May with these kinds of numbers I’m going to start getting anxious about what our typical summer numbers are going to look like.â€
Typically, the jail’s population dips during winter months and ticks up in the summer. Except for this year.
Since the pandemic — when city and county officials took various measures to keep as many people out of jail as possible — the inmate population has increased to normal levels, except for the past few months, when those numbers jumped beyond normal to unusually high.
In August and September, the average daily population was still below 2021 levels, but by October it had jumped above the previous year’s numbers, and it kept rising.
In October, the average daily jail population was 646.3, compared with 634.4 a year earlier — a 1.8% increase. By December, the average daily jail population hit 670.1 — 13% higher than the same month a year earlier and higher than it was in July.
It went down slightly in January and continued to drop, but the 610 inmates in jail last week were still well above the 557.1 average daily population for February 2022, Johnson said.
Jail bookings for the fourth quarter of the 2021-22 fiscal year were 6.4% higher than the previous fiscal year, Johnson said, and lodgings (those people who didn’t bond out) were up 11%.
If those numbers keep going up — or even stay where they are — and the population increases as it typically does in the summer, Johnson said he worries about getting close to capacity.
Jail capacity is 786, but the jail is staffed to handle about 665 inmates, Johnson said. And the 786 capacity is deceiving because 80-90 of the cells are designated for people in segregation, protective custody or other special management issues, which means they’re not available for the general population, he said.
For the fourth quarter of the last fiscal year, the average population put the jail — which opened 10 years ago — at more than 98% of its operational capacity, Johnson said.
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All of which means, if the numbers stay where they are and go up from there in summer, “we’ll have to get very creative about how we’re going to house folks,†Johnson said.
He said he doesn’t know why the jail population is on the rise, but digging into the numbers offers some clues.
The biggest group of people in the jail are those awaiting trial on felonies — and they accounted for the biggest part of the increase. That indicates more people are being arrested on felonies, though Lincoln Police Department statistics don’t show that happening.
Lancaster County Attorney Pat Condon said there are at least 10 people awaiting trial on homicide charges, which means they’ve got higher bonds and are less likely to be released, which could be contributing to some of the increase.
He said he’s asked for some more specific jail data to see if he can pinpoint the reason for the increase — whether people are waiting longer to be sentenced, or if they’re waiting longer to go to trial, for instance.
Johnson said length of stay has risen somewhat over time.
Another factor is an influx of people released from prison who are on supervised probation, which was a program begun as part of a 2015 legislative bill (LB605) to reduce prison overcrowding, Johnson said.
In the last quarter of the year, 12 inmates on supervised release had their probation revoked and had to serve out the rest of their sentences in jail rather than prison, an average of 186 days per inmate, according to Lancaster County Corrections statistics.
Fifteen people went to jail for violating the terms of their probationary release from prison, for a combined total of 293 days.
LB605 also allowed judges to sentence people on Class IV felonies to jail rather than prison, and people are getting longer jail sentences for those felonies, Condon said. In one case, he said, a judge sentenced an offender to five one-year consecutive sentences in jail.
Johnson said it’s also possible that this was a bubble that will deflate and numbers will continue to go down before summer, or that summer numbers won’t spike as they typically do.
“I’m hoping that we’re just going to ride through the summer pretty flat from where we’re at now,†he said.
The Lancaster County Jail on West O Street opened in 2013. The 32 cells in each pod house two inmates apiece. Since October, the jail has seen record-high numbers of inmates and while capacity isn't a problem now, the numbers usually jump in the summer, which might present a dilemma.
The Lancaster County jail on West O Street opened in 2013. The 32 cells in each pod house two inmates each. The Lancaster County jail on West O Street opened in 2013. The 32 cells in each pod house two inmates each. Since October, the jail has seen record-high numbers of inmates and while capacity isn't a problem now, the numbers usually jump in the summer.
Over the past four months, the Lancaster County Jail population increased at a time when it typically decreases. If the trend continues through summer the jail could near capacity.