Sheriff Seeks To Keep Transferring Inmates to Racine

Milwaukee County Jail. Photo by Jeramey Jannene.

The Milwaukee County Sheriff‘s Office (MCSO) anticipates that it will continue to transfer inmates from the Milwaukee County Jail to the Racine County Jail to manage the Milwaukee facility’s population.

The MCSO is seeking county board approval to extend an existing contract with Racine County through 2024. The agreement allows the sheriff’s office to transfer individuals to Racine in exchange for a daily $70 fee per person. The contract extension will go before the board later this month.

In 2022, MCSO officials sought the inmate transfer agreement with Racine County because the jail was regularly exceeding its court-ordered capacity. In the past, the jail sent overflow to the county’s Community Reintegration Center (CRC), which is under the control of the county executive and the CRC superintendent.

But officials have struggled to staff the CRC in recent years, and Superintendent Chantell Jewell said at the time that it would be “unsafe” for the CRC to accept more transfers from the jail.

“Milwaukee County needs an alternative housing option for MCJ occupants to ensure space within the MCJ for population management purposes,” Chief Deputy Daniel Hughes said in a report to the Milwaukee County Board.

In the past, jail staff have been forced to hold people in the booking room for long periods waiting for an open bed; sometimes for more than two days.

In the report to the board, Hughes did not state how many individuals the MCSO transferred to Racine County in 2023. The MCSO has not responded to a request for this information. The board allocated $497,000 for the transfer charges in 2023. The MCSO reports that it still has $249,381 left and will not need additional funding in 2024.

The jail has 990 beds, but a court-ordered capacity of 960. The limit stems from a 1996 lawsuit over constitutional violations and unsafe living conditions. The jail remains under conditions established as a settlement to the case, which includes court-ordered monitoring of the facility and access by organizations like the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).

Between 40 and 70 people are ordered to the jail daily by the courts or brought there by local law enforcement. The population of the jail can fluctuate above and below the limit during a single day.

Court officials stopped ordering misdemeanor defendants to the jail during the pandemic. The MCSO reported that the majority of people held at the jail during a point-in-time count in June were charged with “crimes associated with violent felonies.” The most common charge in the jail at that time was first-degree homicide.

The MCSO has also struggled with staffing challenges and reports that it has one of the highest inmate-to-staff ratios in the state. The 2024 county budget, recently passed by the Milwaukee County Board, increases the starting wage for corrections officers to $30 an hour. Policymakers hope the pay increase will stabilize staffing at the jail.