A consultancy firm hired by San Mateo County has been fired after investigating how the county  handles the flow of criminals into the local jail - information, the Mercury News reported, that may have downplayed the need for the county to build a new jail, which it has set aside funding to do.

County officials had hired the firm, the Institute for Law and Policy Planning (ILPP), to evaluate the "Achieve 180" program aimed at integrating prisoners back into the community. ILPP representatives working with the county had recently requested additional inmate information and, shortly after, San Mateo County officials terminated the firm's contract, according to the Mercury News article.

John Beiers, a county attorney, said ILPP lost focus when it went from looking at Achieve 180 to evaluating the county's pretrial program and the need to build a new jail, the article stated.

"They clearly came in with their own agenda, which took us several weeks to realize," Beiers said, according to the Mercury News. "They wanted to do something much broader than they were asked to do. I think they were being disingenuous."

San Mateo County plans to build a $160 million jail in Redwood City - a facility authorities hope will help the issue of inmate overcrowding at existing local jails. Residents, anti-jail groups and correctional system experts, however, have recently expressed opposition to a new facility.

A report released by ILPP echoed those thoughts, saying a new facility was "not justified" and will not solve the major flaws of the county's justice system, the San Mateo Daily Journal reported. ILPP Executive Director Alan Kalmanoff said the $25,000 contract with the county was terminated when the firm asked about these "serious system flaws," the article stated.

The report said, if built, these system flaws are likely to continue at the new jail, and force taxpayers to pay to try to fix them, the Daily Journal reported. The report also stated the Achieve 180 program was the root of a "turf fight" between probation and behavior health officials and the San Mateo County Sheriff's plans for a new jail are only "crippling" the correctional system further, the article stated.

The report blamed overcrowding in San Mateo jails on the sheriff's inmate classification system and the "restrictive" pretrial release program, the Daily Journal reported.