Navajo County becomes temporarily unused prison at White Mountain Apache Tribe | rent latest news

HOLBROOK – Navajo County and the White Mountain Apache Tribe signed a deal this week to rent the county’s unused juvenile detention center to the tribe.

The tribe’s own detention facility is currently under renovation, so the tribe needed a place to hold their prisoners for the next several months, Sheriff David Clouse said.

The tribe will pay $ 34,000 a month and will likely house 30 to 80 prisoners at the facility, which the county closed in 2017 during a period of budget cuts.

At that point, Navajo County was paying approximately $ 1.2 million annually to operate the facility. The closure of the facility prompted the county to send juveniles sentenced to prison terms to neighboring counties. The county eliminated 16 full-time and seven part-time positions when it closed the facility. On average, the juvenile detention center detained around seven teenagers a day. The county has since developed more community-based internships to minimize the number of teenagers held in maximum security prisons. However, he pays other counties to imprison teenagers who have been charged with serious crimes and detained by judges.

Clouse said the agreement will also allow the tribe to consolidate all of their prisoners into a single facility run by tribal workers.

“For many years we have recorded some of their overflow when they get into a situation where their facilities need to be repaired,” Clouse told managers just before they unanimously approved the proposed lease. “We usually have 10 to 50 inmates (from the tribe) on a contract basis.”

The pandemic has posed challenges as the virus quickly spread among inmates and staff. The county has suspended as many prisoners as possible and has tried to severely limit contact between long-term prison inmates and the short-term population awaiting bail or trial.

The act of juggling was made difficult by high rates of spread in the White Mountain Apache Reserve.

“Due to COVID, we worked very hard not to mix them with the long-term inmates,” said Clouse.

The tribe will likely have to lease the Holbrook juvenile detention center for about two months, Clouse said. However, the agreement provides for the lease to be renewed at a cost of $ 17,000 every two weeks.

“This allows them to call in their own detention officers. If they need medical services from our nurses, they can come over. All custody, detention and transportation to the court are handled by their own staff. Then they can return to their own building (in the reserve) in the spring. “

The National Marshall Project has kept records of COVID-19 infections in prisons and prisons nationwide.

As of January 19, at least 355,957 people in prison had tested positive for the virus. The number of new cases reached a daily average of more than 25,000 in the week of December 8, but had fallen to 12,000 new cases per day per week from January 19. At least 2,232 prisoners have died as a result of the infection. Prisoners continue to die at the rate of around 80-100 per day.

Arizona has reported 8,778 cases among inmates in its prisons and at least 45 deaths. That’s an infection rate of 2,440 per 10,000 prisoners. In Arizona, prison workers have reported 2,254 cases, the highest daily rate since the pandemic began last month. The Marshall Project found that the state did not report employee deaths from COVID to the national database it oversees. (https://www.themarshallproject.org/2020/05/01/a-state-by-state-look-at-coronavirus-in-prisons)

In contrast, outside of prisons and jails, Arizona currently has an infection rate of 960 per 10,000. Most prisons and jails provide ideal conditions for the virus to spread, with overcrowding, poor ventilation, little time outdoors, and frequent close contact and shared air for most inmates and staff.

Peter Aleshire covers county government and other issues for the Independent. He is the former editor of the Payson Roundup. Reach out to him at [email protected]