The Mobile County Commission is weighing whether to borrow $24.5 million for capital projects, with the bulk of that money earmarked for improvements to Mobile Metro Jail aimed at resolving a Department of Justice investigation into the facility that has dragged on for 14 years.
Commission President Merceria Ludgood said the county plans to direct $15 million toward addressing deficiencies identified in a 2015 audit by the National Institute for Jail Operations. County officials said in a statement over the summer that they were working with Sheriff Sam Cochran to implement recommended physical improvements, including upgrades to the areas that handle inmates’ mental health and medical needs.
“Our priorities are to expand our existing medical wing to include a designated mental health wing and to add more cells for inmates with mental health issues,” Cochran said. “We also want to expand the docket room and our intake area. We think those can be done at the same time.”
Statewide cuts to mental health services have left county jails like Metro absorbing a growing share of the burden for housing mentally ill individuals, Cochran said, sometimes forcing corrections officers to isolate those inmates in cells originally designed to hold multiple people. A dedicated mental health wing, he said, would free up that capacity.
The county has already spent $1.7 million this year replacing Metro’s security camera system, which hadn’t been updated since the 1980s and was missing coverage in key areas, including cells used for inmates on suicide watch.
Many of the deficiencies now being addressed through these capital projects mirror concerns the DOJ first raised when it opened its investigation into the jail in 2003. As recently as 2009, the agency described the facility’s mental and physical health services as “grossly” and, at times, “constitutionally” inadequate. Cochran, who took office after the investigation began, said many of those issues have since been resolved, but the federal inquiry remains open 14 years later.
“They have attempted to get us to accept some type of consent decree, which I have opposed each and every time based on the advice of our attorneys,” Cochran said. “We’ve taken the stance that we’re not in violation of any constitutional standards. They’ve not brought any kind of lawsuit against us, but we have agreed to work with them, and they’ve since taken many of their concerns off the table.”
Cochran pointed to a significant drop in Metro’s average inmate population in recent years as one factor that has eased earlier DOJ concerns about overcrowding. He also credited the county’s decision to bring in outside contractor NaphCare to manage inmate health care as a step that addressed longstanding complaints about medical services at the jail.
While Cochran said resolving the DOJ investigation was not the primary motivation behind the planned renovations, he said he would welcome that outcome, even if the necessary improvements have to be completed in stages given budget constraints.
“What the county is doing is a big help, but at the end of the day, they only have so much money,” Cochran said. “We’re doing the best we can with the money that’s available to us.”