The Clark County Detention Center has 3,793 beds and is now running two to three hundred over this limit on a daily basis. Why? Because the North Tower is being renovated and it will be FOUR years before it is completed. What are they thinking?
The North Tower had 421 beds and did need renovation, as its infrastructure was old, but wasn’t anyone thinking about what to do during this time period?
Another factor affecting the over crowding, is the fact that the courts are taking longer to process the prisoners and therefore their stay in the detention center is approximately four days longer per person.
The solution has been to send prisoners to the North Las Vegas Detention Center at a cost of $10.00 per day per inmate. (That’s in addition to the basic cost to house a prisoner) Other prisoners have been sent to other facilities, which cost the same or more. According to a report on Channel 3 tonight, the county paid $17,188 recently for boarding for the prisoners they have had to farm out to other facilities.