Arrests crowd Mat-Su Pretrial

PALMER — A “steady stream of arrests” drove the inmate count at Mat-Su Pretrial as high as 121 this weekend, according to state officials.

The detention center’s maximum capacity is 102 people, according to Sherrie Daigle, spokeswoman for the Department of Corrections. Although the number of inmates had declined to 106 by Monday morning, Daigle said.

To put that number in perspective, the average number of inmates typically doesn’t exceed 90 people, according to figures provided by Daigle.

When a facility exceeds its maximum hard bed capacity, officials sometimes add temporary beds, Daigle said.

Or, Corrections officials can sometimes shift inmates from any of the state’s pretrial facilities to numerous other long-term housing facilities to address temporary overflow, according to Daigle. For example, some of the Mat-Su Pretrial inmates could find themselves relocated temporarily to the Goose Creek Correctional Facility.

The population of judicial intake and pretrial facilities like Mat-Su Pretrial is often highly variable, Daigle added.

“It just depends on the location of the facility,” she said. “We try to keep all of our facilities below the maximum capacity. It just depends what’s going on. Our pre-trial facilities are always booked. We’re constantly transferring people out of those facilities.”

Corrections maintains pretrial facilities at the Anchorage Jail, Anvil Mountain Correctional Center in Nome, Fairbanks Correctional Facility, as well as Ketchikan and Juneau, Daigle said.

Police departments in smaller, more remote communities often contract with corrections to provide pretrial detention for courts.

Contact Brian O’Connor at 352-2269 or brian.oconnor@frontiersman.com.