A proposal that would allow upward of 60 inmates to be transferred from Monterey County to the Santa Rita Jail is still being considered. The matter is scheduled to be discussed by the county board of supervisors later this week.   Monterey County detention officers say they are hopeful the measure will pass.  It will help alleviate some of the overcrowding within their facilities.

A spokesperson for the jail said they have a rated capacity of 824.  As of February 1, they are holding more than 1,150 inmates.  The county's public defender office has since filed a lawsuit.  They have alleged that these types of conditions put inmates and employees at risk.

The Santa Rita Jail is able to hold up to 4,000 inmates.  A spokesperson for this facility has indicated they have more than enough room to accommodate 60 additional detainees.   Monterey would be billed between $85 and $125 per day per transferee.  That rate will be based on the number of persons being transferred.   Monterey detention officers would select who is eligible to be moved based on their medical and criminal history.  The Santa Rita Jail is not required to accept every person who the neighboring county deems eligible.   Those who are have serious ongoing medical issues or who have a history of bad behavior can be nixed.

The Alameda County Sheriff's Department has reportedly not indicated they will hire additional staff in order to accommodate the additional detainees.  The ACLU, however, has become a very vocal opponent of this plan.  They feel it will place a greater distance between inmates and their families. In some cases it could prevent people from scheduling visitations with loved ones who are behind bars.  A better plan, they said, would be for Monterey to spend more money on programs that would reduce recidivism rates.  They have also suggested implementing programs that would allow for a greater number of pretrial detainees to be released via monitoring devices.

Proponents of the plan say that if these inmates were serving sentences in state prisons, as they would have been before the state's prisoner realignment went into effect, they would already be housed in a facility that is much farther away than the Santa Rita Jail.

The Monterey County board of supervisors is scheduled to meet on Tuesday.  That session is expected to begin at about 8:30 am.  The matter will be voted on before the end of the day.  Jail officials have not said when the transfers will begin taking place.  If approved, the contract will be good for approximately one year.