LOUISVILLE, Ky.-- The Louisville Metro Department of Corrections (LMDC) is over capacity. Assistant Director Steve Durham says the jail is only "slightly" overcrowded, because there are 1,793 beds and the inmate population is just above that. Durham says the average daily population is 2,100 inmates; they can cost $80 to about $250 per day per inmate to house. He adds that when the population is up, safety can be at risk, plus, the cost of operations rises. However, Metro Corrections explains they're trying to curb the population, and that it has declined since they've installed programs for reentry. 

There are cots on floors of cells, to accommodate those who don't have a bunk. 

"Once you get to a point of saturation, then you really are starting to put people at risk you know. Tensions flare," Steve Durham says. "If you don't have enough beds in there, then guess what's going to happen? People are going to sleep on the floor. So we're putting portable bunks into these bed spaces."

Jails differ from prisons in several ways. They hold people before trial. At LMDC, Durham says an inmate's average stay is between 21 and 28 days. In Kentucky, state inmates serving time for Class D felonies are also housed in county jails, but not at LMDC. Louisville is unique in that way. 

Justice Cabinet Secretary John Tilley has spoken against the state policy that pushes state inmates into county jails, and told Spectrum News One that other counties are, "saddled with this problem. Their budgets are bursting. We are simply warehousing people, stacking human beings on top of one another in these jails without programming. Only 20 or so jails of the 75-or-6 depending which jails are active at the moment, offer any type of programming like drug treatment."

Durham says they do have drug treatment at LMDC, and have had success helping inmates overcome opioid addiction. He says counselors help place newly released people into help when they are homeless or need mental treatment, and that inmates are earning GEDs while incarcerated, too. "We look outside the door," he says. 

The Bail Project also pays bail for some of the people booked on low-level charges, that cannot afford to pay it. "The Bail Project is great, but I wish we didn't have it- I wish we didn't need it because really it's a work around for legislation," sayd Durham.