The Platte County Commission is forming a committee to look into options for dealing with the overcrowding at the Platte County Detention Center.
Presiding Commissioner Scott Fricker made the announcement at the Monday, June 19 administrative session, held at the Platte County Administration Center in Platte City.
Residents interested in volunteering for the committee are encouraged to visit the county website at co.platte.mo.us to fill out an application for the Committee for Public Safety.
“This is just the next step in a process that began early last year when inmate populations exploded after being drastically reduced for safety reasons during COVID,” Fricker said. “In a detention facility with 180 beds and a safe maximum population of 153 inmates, the population surged to 240 inmates, at which point the Sheriff’s Department began transferring inmates to nearby counties bringing the inmate population back down to 210; still significantly above safe levels. The County Commission began regular discussions with the Sheriff’s department about ways to reduce the population, but no easy solutions emerged. And while transferring inmates back and forth from Platte City to nearby counties is an adequate short-term solution, it’s not sustainable, it’s dangerous, it’s expensive, and there’s no guarantee those jails will have space for us when we need it.”
At the meeting, Sheriff Mark Owen commended the commission for the decision to form the committee. For nearly a decade, Owen has warned of impending overcrowding at the jail, which was completed in the mid-1990s.
Last month, consultant Bill Garnos reported the jail facility was “absolutely maxed out.” Garnos was tasked with drafting projections on jail capacity before the pandemic and his predictions panned out early last year when the jail was forced to send prisoners to other jails due to overcrowding. In March, a grand jury presented a letter to Platte County Presiding Judge Thomas Fincham, which stated the jail was over capacity. Fincham himself came before the commission in recent weeks to voice his support for a new jail and justice center.
Fricker went on to list several points regarding the situation:
The Sheriff’s Department has zero control over inmate populations. They’re tasked with housing the inmates entrusted to them, and they’ve done a tremendous job under very difficult circumstances.
The Commission also has no control over inmate populations. Think of us as a landlord with a tenant that needs more space. And it’s our responsibility to make sure that our tenant, the Sheriff’s Department, has the facilities they need to keep the public safe.
Population and crime trends are not working in our favor. Platte County is the fastest growing county in Missouri, but that growth is far outpaced by the increase in felonies. From 2015 to 2022, felony prosecutions increased 153%, for an average annual increase of 22% per year. Our current facilities simply cannot handle these annual increases any longer.
And finally, this is not a problem that’s going to go away. In fact, it will just continue to get worse if nothing is done.