Let's see … where does one begin to sort through the issues surrounding jail over-crowding in Mower County?

Everyone knows the Minnesota Department of Corrections has consistently increased space and other standards for prisoners until county jails were rendered in non-compliance or obsolete.

When the Mower County Jail fills to DOC capacity, the over-flow of prisoners is transported to the Mitchell County Jail in Osage, Iowa.

So a new or expanded jail is a given, but consider also the thought-provoking offspring of the over-crowding issue.

Even issues have issues to debate

If the Mower County Board of Commissioners decides to expand the current jail on-site, George Washington will have to go.

The only ground to expand at the downtown government center site is the west lawn where the statue of the nation's founder stands, but even going in that direction may be physically impossible.

The design of the government center is linear -- two long rectangles for county offices and the jail. By incarceration standards, the linear design is considered inefficient and unsafe. Presently, jail detention officers walk almost an entire city block to get from one end of the jail to the other and they do it many times 24/7.

Another option would be to expand to the Robbins Furniture and Design Gallery property across First Street NE from the government center. Or the Usem's Inc. showroom property at the southeast corner of Second Avenue and Second Street NE.

Skyways or tunnels could connect the downtown sites to the courtrooms in the government center.

The consultants did not mention closing a block of First Avenue NE south of the government center, but some observers say that would give enough room for both an expanded jail -- reconfigured to a modular design -- as well as auxiliary district court offices and off-street parking.

Building a new jail off-site is an idea that runs hot and cold.

Build the modular-designed, ultra-secure jail at the Austin Business Development Park and one still has the problem of transporting prisoners to and from the jail to courtrooms downtown.

More likely a criminal justice facility, housing everything at one site, would work, but where?

Of course, Mower County could continue to board out prisoners to Mitchell County, Iowa, and Steele County's new jail in Owatonna or the new Freeborn County Jail under construction in Albert Lea.

That would be like paying rent: Money out the window for a short-term fix that still leaves other issues unaddressed.

For instance, courtroom security, adequate court administration and prosecutor space and the human services building. Yes. That's part of the mix too.

If the county commissioners do agree to sell the existing human services, veterans services and public health facility along North Main Street in Austin, they will have to rent office space for the agencies elsewhere until the next permanent site is located.

The commissioners already rejected a proposal to join Freeborn County in financing and building a new criminal justice system to serve both counties and be located in the Hayward area.

Now, county commissioners are on their own and jail over-crowding has become only one piece in a puzzling dilemma, because there are other important issues attaching themselves to the debate.

What about court security?

Take the government center from downtown Austin and that leaves a large economic hole for merchants.

Build a new criminal justice facility at the Austin Business Development Park or some other neutral location in or near the city and where does one stop? Does probation and correctional services move there, too?

It's only been two meetings for the jail study committee, but already the enormity of the decision to be made must be registering on the minds of the citizens charged with the responsibility of finding a solution to the jail issue.

Garry Ellingson, 5th District county commissioner, said jail over-crowding is the main issue.

"The rest are all intertwined," the county board chair noted.

Richard P. Cummings, 2nd District and vice chair of the county board, has twice promised the committee members their recommendation will be the one the county board takes to the citizens for approval.

But one issue threatens to overwhelm the main issue seen by the commissioner as the most vexing.

After two meetings of the jail study committee, this tangential issue is emerging as the one that may drive the decision about jail-overcrowding: courtroom security.

Last Wednesday night, committee members heard a convincing case for making security the top priority. Security in the courts, not the jail.

No more ordinary days in court

District Court Judge Donald E. Rysavy awoke at 5 a.m. Wednesday. His first priority: to study eight separate criminal cases against a female defendant who forged checks to pay for her addiction to methamphetamine drugs.

Before the day was over, he would hear cases involving 12 criminal defendants.

That night, he joined other jail study committee members on a tour of courtroom facilities and told them, things have changed for the worse since the 1994-95 government center remodeling.

Then, he showed them proof.

"This is the back corridor, where the in-custody prisoners are escorted to their courtroom," he said as the tour began. "Frequently, I have stepped out of my chambers and walked into a line of orange-clad prisoners heading for the courtroom. The door to my chambers is only 36 inches away from defendants.

"It's not a good situation for anyone."

Inside the courtroom, court security officer Steve Sandvik showed the visitors the jury box, where prisoners sit until their cases are called.

"A city or a county officer escorts the prisoners, but when a backup occurs and a case runs over, not only does that mean that we have more in-custody prisoners sitting around in the jury box together, but we are keeping the officer or the deputy off the street. They're not doing their job," he said.

Also Sandvik pointed out today's prisoners are sophist aced criminals.

"While they're sitting around waiting to go before the judge, they're taking note of where the doors are, how close they are to the spectators gallery, how near they are to the clerk and other courtroom personnel and who does what and when. They're smart."

Patricia Ball, Mower County Court Administrator, pointed out the frequent co-mingling of jurors, defendants and witnesses in the hallways outside courtrooms. "All the time we have jurors exposed to prisoners in transit and that's not a good situation," Ball said.

"You're always concerned that someone in custody will take their anger out on a judge, a clerk, a court reporter, someone at the defense table. Anybody they can get their hands on," Sandvik said.

Too often, the current configuration of the second floor court spaces allows for large numbers of people in a hostile environment, the trio told the committee.

On the days of arraignments and juvenile hearings, there can be more than 100 people milling about in the second-floor hallway.

Sandvik and the bailiffs are the only court personnel to watch over the crowd.

"That's an invitation to disaster," Sandvik said.

He has confiscated make-shift weapons, including a sword concealed inside a cane from visitors to a courtroom

The environment is not immune to graffiti. Gang symbols have been carved into a door frame leading into a courtroom and on a bench in the hallway nearby.

"I've gotten letters from jurors saying they're afraid to come to court the way things are now," Ball said.

When recalcitrant juveniles congregate outside the courtroom waiting for their cases to be heard, Sandvik said, "It's a nightmare."

A metal detector is available, but it is portable and takes up space and further clogs the corridor, bringing people in even closer contact with each other.

Security dominated the judge's remarks; even more than Mower County's growing caseload -- now close to the 2.7 judges mark. Rysavy and Fred A. Wellmann are the only two sitting judges in Mower County district court.

They also said defendants are more emotional, lack self-control and, therefore, pose more dangers.

They are more confrontational defendants.

"Family court is very volatile and even commitment hearings can be volatile, too," Ball said.

There is no secure, out-of-sight space to allow juveniles, female victims of sexual assaults, children who are victims of sexual abuse, vulnerable adults as well as jurors and witnesses, plus the attorneys, to truly allow them to have uninterrupted private conversations away from others waiting for court.

"Sometimes we have people waiting down in the commissioners' meeting room," Ball said.

Put a jury trial into the picture and all the other problems are exacerbated.

Chamber days? Those Fridays, when judges were allowed to catch up on paperwork, are gone forever, according to district court officials.

When the tour was over, the judge, court administrator and security officer heard Ellingson make an understatement.

"I think you have all had an earful tonight," he told the jail study committee.

On that night, the earful was that court security, court administration, court space and personnel issues swirl around the jail over-crowding issue and won't go away. New jail or no new jail.

Lee Bonorden can be contacted at 434-2232 or by e-mail at :lee.bonorden@austindailyherald.com