The county jail is the finest barometer of local politics. It measures the effectiveness as opposed to the rhetoric of elected officials. The recent events in the Alachua jail are a case in point.

On the surface, there was one rape and sexual abuse case in the last 3 or 4 months. Both the county commissioners and State’s attorney have reacted with an appropriate sense of righteous indignation. This indignation underscores the maxim a strong offense is the best defense.

By initiating an investigation of the jail they can control its scope. The question should be: Why is this not a routine matter instead of waiting for a crisis.

Make no mistake, Alachua county jail has some problems and any outside look by professionals will surely improve the situation. However, in over 1,000 visits spanning the last 7 years to jails and prisons in North Central Florida, my opinion is the county jail is in the top three facilities visited.

Some background: the jail was built in 1994 with a capacity of 920 beds. National standards set a 15% open bed capacity for appropriate classification arrangements. This means the number of inmates for safe jail operations is 782.

In 1994 the jail had an average fill of 450 inmates. By 1998, it reached an average of 816 inmates and seldom went back to the safe operating limit of 782. It reached a high of 1003 inmates in June of 2003.

Alachua went from a public incarceration rate of 260 per 100,000 in 1994 to 450 per 100,000 in June of 2003. Someone should have been asking What is going on? However, when we compare incarceration rates of Alachua County in relation to the rest of the world, these numbers take on new significance.

Our cousins to the north in Canada have a ratio of 100 and across the Atlantic in England, a ratio of 135. Something is radically wrong in this county no matter how you look at the numbers.

Jail crowding, classification problems, and overextended correctional officers are a recipe for disaster. Compounding this recipe for disaster is an inmate population ranging from career criminals to harmless drunks. Crowding and overextended correctional officer staffing speak directly to choices made by our political leaders. A choice that places both jail staff and inmates at risk.

The sheriff has repeatedly asked for more space and resources. It has been a conscious decision on the part of the county commissioners for the last five years to ignore the jail problems by not dealing with the realities required to operate a safe and efficient jail.

None of the commissioners have bothered to look at the trends, themes, and patterns in the numbers to see if something could be done to head off the looming crisis they now face.