Are Mahoning Valley’s small jails too big a burden?

By SARAH LEHR

slehr@vindy.com

STRUTHERS

For a small facility, the Struthers City Jail has a troubling history.

In 2005, a 21-year-old man died after hanging himself from a sheet tied to a vent. The next year, a 42-year-old woman died after strangling herself with a telephone cord.

In a parallel to the 2005 suicide, Peter Bugno, 43, died after hanging himself Sept. 10, 2015, from a vent in his Struthers jail cell.

As a result, Mayor Terry Stocker, citing suicides, among other issues, said he’s inclined to think the city should “get out of the jail business.”

HISTORY REPEATED

Bugno was booked on a misdemeanor charge of disorderly conduct while intoxicated about four hours before he was found dead.

Two police captains received unpaid suspensions after the deaths. An internal investigation determined they violated protocol in the hours leading to the death. Capt. Patrick Bundy was disciplined for not completing required jail checks at least once every hour.

The city cleared Capt. Michael Leonard of a charge alleging he failed to place Bugno under suicide watch or to refer him to a mental health professional despite the existence of a screening form in which “yes” was checked in response to the question, “Do you have intention of hurting yourself or committing suicide?”

The city’s investigation determined Leonard had incorrectly completed the form, which was apparently initialed by Leonard and Bugno, because Bugno had indicated he was not suicidal, according to statements from Leonard and from another inmate who was reportedly present during Bugno’s screening. Leonard was disciplined for filling out the form incorrectly.

A 2006 coroner’s report obtained by The Vindicator, states that “yes” was similarly checked in response to the question, “Do you have any intention of hurting yourself or committing suicide” in the case of the 42-year-old woman who hanged herself in the Struthers jail nearly 10 years ago.

The coroner’s report from 2006 states: “Officer Mamula clarified this in his statement to This Investigator that when the decedent stated this, she explained that ‘she thought of it as in the past’ as she had been depressed. She also made an additional remark that she thought of it in the last week. Turn Captain Thomas Skorvira was advised of this reply by Mamula, and Skorvira advised that he specifically addressed her reply as to now, present time, in the police station, which she advised she did not mean now.”

The woman was not placed under suicide watch or referred to a mental health professional, according to Vindicator files.

After Bugno’s death last September, officials placed a grid over all Struthers jail cell vents. Police Chief Tim Roddy said he did not know why the city did not modify the vents after the 2005 suicide because he did not become chief until 2010.

Roddy also said the department has refrained from booking inmates into its city jail over the last few months, when possible, while the city looks into compliance issues at the jail.

DRAIN ON RESOURCES?

Since Youngstown shuttered its city jail circa 1993, only two small municipal jails left are in the county — Struthers and Campbell.

“It’s a matter of economics,” Mahoning County Prosecutor Paul Gains said of why jails shut down.

“What’s happening is more and more regulations,” said Campbell Finance Director Michael Evanson. “There’s an element of diminishing returns here.”

The Struthers jail has a maximum capacity of nine inmates. Campbell’s jail can hold four. By contrast, the Mahoning County jail can hold 578, according to state recommendations.

Gains said he did not believe operational difficulties are inherent to small-scale jails “as long as employees comply with standards.”

Stocker, however, said he’s come to believe the city jail is an unnecessary liability and a drain on resources.

If Struthers were to shutter its jail, it would send all inmates to the county lockup.

Stocker argues the county jail is better-equipped to deal with the complications of running a jail. Unlike Struthers, the county jail has its own on-site medical personnel, including a psychiatrist certain days a week, and its own laundry service.

Still, the Mahoning County jail saw two suicides in 2015. They were the first at the facility in 12 years.

Like the Campbell jail, Struthers jail is licensed as a 12-day facility. Regulatory standards become more stringent for higher-grade jails.

Going forward, the city may decide to scale the jail back to a 12-hour or six-hour facility – also known as a temporary holding facility – or even eliminate its jail.

In December 2015, Atty. David Engler sent Struthers a letter threatening a federal lawsuit on behalf of the estate of Peter Bugno. Shortly after receiving the letter the city, through its insurance company, hired Attn. John Travis with the Cleveland-based firm Gallagher & Sharp.

At the mayor’s urging, Struthers City Council voted March 23 to hire Robert Pace, a consultant with Managed Confinement and a former director of corrections at the Cuyahoga County jail, to audit the city jail. Pace will present his analysis to city council this week.

STRUTHERS OPTIONS

Though he has not yet completed his research, Pace said that if Struthers keeps its jail, he recommends maintaining a 12-day facility or converting to a six-hour temporary holding facility.

“With a 12-day, you get more bang for your buck,” Pace noted.

Pace cites multiple issues with the Struthers jail, including a lack of two-way audio communications between cells and the dispatch office. That capability is required under the state’s minimum jail standards and can be a way for inmates to call for help.

Pace advised city council if the jail were to continue, the city would need to install cameras in all cells and that the city should designate one cell as high-surveillance. Any inmate who seems intoxicated, or “emotionally disturbed” should be in a high-surveillance cell, Pace said.

The Campbell jail has cameras in all cells, in addition to a high-surveillance cell. Campbell Police Chief Drew Rauzan said the city avoids booking any prisoner under the influence. To avoid risk, the department generally releases such a person on bond until the first court appearance, he said.

Rauzan also didn’t believe there are problems inherent to running a small municipal jail, if they are well-managed.

LACK OF UNIFORMITY

Mike Brickner, policy director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio, said jail operations can vary wildly.

“There are 88 counties in Ohio and hundreds of ways of running a jail,” Brickner said, contending that the 20-some state prisons in Ohio operate in a more uniform way because they are operated directly by the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction.

Although the ODRC inspects jails annually, oftentimes compliance issues “aren’t followed up on” or don’t carry significant consequences, he said.

“Unfortunately, these facilities don’t get any kind of scrutiny until something really terrible happens like a death and maybe an attorney files a wrongful death lawsuit,” Brickner said of local jails.

Though small jails hold only a small fraction of the nation’s incarcerated population, they experience a disproportionate number of suicides.

A 2010 U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics report found that small jails had suicide rates six times higher than at the largest facility. The smallest jails had the highest average annual suicide rate (167 per 100,000 inmates), while the 50 largest jails had the lowest average annual suicide rate (27 per 100,000 inmates), according to the BJS.

THE MONEY ISSUE

The exact costs of running jails — at the county or city level — are difficult to pin down.

City and county officials said they could not provide precise figures because the jails do not have specific budgets, but rather are funded from the police or sheriff department budgets respectively. The Mahoning County Sheriff’s Department had a $21,707,471 budget for 2016, the Struthers Police Department budgeted $1,026,246, and the Campbell Police Department spent $1,462,160.

Certain indirect costs, such as electricity and personnel, can be difficult to isolate as jail-specific, officials said.

Struthers Auditor Christina Bohl did provide direct jail expenses — such as for prisoner clothing and food. Struthers spent $7,235 on direct jail expenses in 2015, according to the auditor.

A form completed by Roddy, the Struthers chief, and submitted to the federal BJS for 2015 estimates the jail’s total annual operating cost, which includes personnel, at $9,054.

The Campbell Finance Office also provided direct jail costs. In 2015, the city spent $2,415 on prisoner sustenance expenses such as food and $3,668 on jail and building repair, according to the finance director.

Stocker said, upon reviewing figures prepared by Struthers Auditor Christina Bohl, “From what I can tell, we don’t make any money from it.”

However, Rauzan, Campbell’s police chief, says the Campbell jail saves money because of fees the city otherwise would have to pay to house its inmates at the county jail.

COUNTY BILLING

In 2012, the county began billing communities to incarcerate inmates charged on city ordinances. Each city pays $80 per inmate per day for those individuals.

However, if an inmate is charged on a state ordinance or on a combination of city and state ordinances, the county foots the bill.

Gains said this system, which is outlined in Ohio law, provides a financial incentive for cities to charge people under state ordinance,

“It’s something that our Legislature should have addressed, but they never have.” Gains said. “You’ve got all kinds of implications here.”

He also noted that, when municipalities charge someone via a city ordinance, the bulk of those fines and fees go to the local, municipal court.

“The incentive for a city to charge someone under their own ordinance is the fees,” Gains said. “What happens in Youngstown is the majority of people who come through the courtroom are indigent, which means the city doesn’t get that revenue.”

Though in certain cases, state charges are more stringent, some offenses, such as possession of marijuana, can carry stiffer penalties under city ordinances.

Billing records provided by Mahoning County show that the county received $85,520 in 2015 from Youngstown for housing the city’s inmates. It received $37,360 from Campbell and $8,560 from Struthers.

PAY TO STAY

So-called “pay-to-stay” fees can offer an additional financial incentive to house an inmate in a city jail. Struthers charges inmates $50 per day to stay in the the city jail. Those fees go to Struthers Municipal Court. From pay-to-stay fees, Struthers collected $3,650 in 2015, down from $4,500 in 2011, according to the auditor’s office.

Campbell and Mahoning County do not charge pay-to-stay fees for their jails.

Struthers judges sometimes sentence offenders to the city jail at the request of defense attorneys. Those offenders have the option to either serve the sentence in the county jail or the Struthers City Jail, where they will be expected to incur pay-to-stay costs.

Although the Struthers jail is licensed as a 12-day facility, the court will sometimes sentence individuals to more than 12 days in the city jail, but will break the time into multiple consecutive sentences. Representatives from the ODRC, the Ohio Attorney General’s Office and the Ohio Supreme Court declined to comment on the legality of the practice, saying the matter didn’t fall under the authority of their respective organizations.

Brickner of the Ohio ACLU expressed concern about the practice, noting that the ODRC sets jail standards based on the maximum length of stay for prisoners. “I’m skeptical when you’re creating a back-door way to keep someone in your city jail when you’re standing to gain some sort of financial benefit,” Brickner said.