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Source: Albuquerque Journal, N.mini storageM.Aug. 01--Bernalillo County could face "substantial" daily fines until it provides a federal judge with acceptable plans to address overcrowding and safety inside the Metropolitan Detention Center.Senior U.S. District Judge James A. Parker has ordered county attorneys into court next week to explain how a letter they submitted complies with his earlier orders that they provide a plan to "cure problems" affecting the health and safety of inmates.The county must explain "why it should not be fined a substantial amount of money for every day that it is in violation" of the original orders, Parker said in a three-page order filed last week.A spokeswoman said jail officials would refrain from commenting but that the county will file a response in court on Monday.The potential for daily fines is the latest twist in a lengthy civil-rights lawsuit over conditions inside the county jail system. The suit was filed 18 years ago, and Parker has been pushing to get it resolved for good.Earlier this year, he ordered the county to develop plans to bring the inmate population down to the jail's design capacity of 2,236. The population fluctuates, but it often has been 200 to 300 inmates above that figure this summer, even though that it has started transferring inmates to other in-state and out-of-state facilities.The most recent count put the population at 2,441, according to the jail.Parker's order also directed the county to address 10 additional points, such as increasing out-of-cell time for inmates in some units and eliminating the practice of holding three inmates in cells designed for two.Jeffrey Baker, the attorney representing the county jail, submitted a seven-page letter July 1 to comply with Parker's order. He said the county planned to move about 360 inmates in July to other jails in Colorado and New Mexico to help relieve overcrowding.Jail staffers also would construct metal enclosures in a recreation yard of some jail units, allowing those inmates "to be out of their cells without being in physical contact with each other," Baker said in the letter.The letter responded to a variety of other directions from the judge, too."These plans are the county's good faith efforts to address the points in" Parker's order, Baker said in the letter.He also mentself storageoned that the county had discovered a problem with the classification program it uses to decide which inmates go to which units in the jail. Nataura Powdrell, a jail spokeswoman, said Wednesday the problem was subsequently fixed.She added that the county has already shipped out more than 170 inmates and is working to transfer an additional 300.Some of the efforts mentioned in Baker's letter are less concrete. On staffing levels in the jail, for example, Baker saidthe countyadministration "will present staffing suggestions" to the County Commission for budget consideration.In another instance, Baker said it was the "county's intention" to meet a certain requirement, assuming its classification program is functioning properly.Attorneys for the inmates slammed Baker's letter. In a recent filing to the court, attorney Nancy Simmons said the letter was vague and didn't amount to a specific commitment to fix jail problems.Indeed, some of the efforts, she said, were couched as merely suggestions that would be made to the County Commission, which has authority over the budget."What the county has presented is not a plan or a series of plans at all," Simmons wrote. The letter is "rather counsel's description of the county's intent to make plans sometime in the future, depending on a series of unknown and unknowable preconditions and future events."She also said it wasn't clear the county had collaborated with a courtappointed expert, as directed by the judge.And the county's acknowledgement of a problem with its inmate-classification software "clearly presents a question of great urgency in terms of the safety, health and security of inmates and staff alike at MDC," Simmons said.Powdrell said the county will respond in court."The county will file its response ... by noon on Monday," she said. "The county's response will address the issues raised by the lawyers for the inmates."Parker scheduled a hearing on the issue for Aug. 8. He didn't say directly that he believes the county is in violation of his earlier orders, only that he is "concerned" that the letter doesn't comply with the requirement for a plan.Copyright: ___ (c)2013 the Albuquerque Journal (Albuquerque, N.M.) Visit the Albuquerque Journal (Albuquerque, N.M.) at .abqjournal.com Distributed by MCT Information Services迷你倉