Legislature creates task force for prison, jail consolidation

The New Mexico Legislature recently created a task force to study the feasibility of consolidating the state’s prison and county jail systems.

Grace Philips, general counsel for New Mexico Counties, was scheduled to make a presentation on the findings Tuesday.

The task force did not “recommend unification of New Mexico’s corrections systems, concluding that unifying New Mexico’s county detention and state prison systems, at this time, is not a responsive solution to the specific challenges faced by criminal justice partners,” as stated in the report.

Philips spoke with The News on Monday about those findings in an interview.

“The task force concluded that moving to unification is not feasible at this time,” Philips said in an email. “There are, however, key findings and recommendations in nine areas. A healthy and effective criminal justice system requires 21st century connectivity and information sharing as well as cross agency collaboration. Training and certification of professionals working in the system should be more uniform. Decisions should be data driven. Behavioral health needs in the community and in secure facilities must be prioritized and all stakeholders need to contribute to the cost of the system which is now overwhelmingly shouldered by those counties that operate detention facilities.”

Justin Porter, Chaves County detention administrator and Chair of the New Mexico Detention Facility, said the main idea behind consolidating the prison and county jail systems is to save costs. The state prison system has a “robust budget” and the county jails are funded by counties. It might be helpful to get all the funding under one umbrella. That could conceivably help with staffing and training issues as well.

Earlier this year, Philips and her colleagues visited several counties to explain the challenges county detention centers are facing.

She said there is a problem with understaffing and reinsurers are becoming reluctant in some cases to insure the facilities.

“The liability climate is changing in New Mexico,” she said. “State law has increased liability exposure for government entities.”

“Our detention facilities are really challenged now,” she told The News on Monday. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the detention populations dwindled and so the staffing was sufficient. Since May of 2020, the low population numbers have been “key” to safety concerns.

However, the populations at the facilities have been increasing since then, she said.

As stated in the release on the report, the task force made the following recommendations:

• Information Systems and Data Sharing

• Cross-Agency Collaboration and Communication

• Behavioral Health Resources – Support in Custody

• Behavioral Health Resources – Support in Communities

• Connectivity and Internet Bandwidth

• Staffing and Workforce Development

• Training and Unified Practices Across Agencies

• Funding and Resource Allocation

• Population Tracking and Trend Analysis