Potter County seeks help from several counties to house inmates

AMARILLO, Texas (KAMR/KCIT) — Potter County commissioners have considered and approved inmate housing contracts with Deaf Smith County, Scurry County and Garza County to address overcrowding at the Potter County Detention Center.

“Our jail is a little overcrowded. We’ve seen a steady increase in the jail population over the last 12 months. We’re currently overcrowded,” said Scott Giles, deputy chief of the Potter County Sheriff’s Office.

According to Giles, the short-term solution is to contract for beds in other provinces.

“Once they sign those contracts, we’ll begin the process of taking advantage of those beds… We’re looking at sending about 20 to 30 inmates to these outlying counties right now. We typically contract for five to 10 beds per jail per county, but we’ll probably need to take advantage of 20 to 30 beds for the time being. Hopefully the population doesn’t continue to grow, otherwise we’ll need more beds than that,” Giles said.

Giles said this isn’t just a Potter County problem.

“This is a statewide problem. We are not the only ones experiencing this. In fact, we were told when we were looking for county jails to rent beds from, there is actually a lot of competition for bed space, so we are hoping that we can get some of those beds and reduce our jail population,” Giles said.

He added that this is not a long-term solution

“For a short-term solution, renting a bed space is certainly cheaper than expanding your prison, which can be very expensive. But in the long term, it is not a sustainable solution,” Giles said.

Potter County Sheriff Brian Thomas told us in late June that they are in discussions with the Potter County Commission about expanding the detention center.

Giles said that currently 81 percent of the inmates at the Potter County Detention Center are felonies, eight percent are misdemeanors and the remaining eight percent fall into another special category.

Giles said Potter County will pay Scurry and Garza County between $60 and $65 per bed per day to house these inmates. They will pay $75 per bed per day to Deaf Smith County. He added that the average daily cost to run the Potter County Jail is $72.51.