Kokomo — In late January, cell mates Monica Clark Davis and Christy Miller were awaiting disposition of their respective cases in the Howard County jail.

Crammed three to a cell, with one cell mate consigned to a plastic sleeping platform on the floor, and Davis and Miller using a bunk bed, the women thought it was about time someone knew about conditions at the jail.

“Can you imagine how three women are supposed to live in such a small area?” Miller said in a letter to the Tribune. “The woman that has to use ‘the boat’ [the sleeping platform] either sleeps with her head by the metal table (this is a hazard) or her head by the toilet (which is unsanitary).”

Howard County Sheriff Steve Rogers said it’s not an ideal situation at the jail, which was built in the late 1990s with the understanding that female inmates would number, at most, around two dozen.

When the Tribune visited the jail in late January, the jail had upwards of 70 female inmates.

The cell block where females are housed, designed to hold two women in each of its 16 cells, now holds three to a cell. A smaller unit which formerly was reserved as the jail’s medical unit, is also stacked full of women.

Finally, Howard County had 16 female inmates housed at the fairly new Miami County Jail, which has extra space. Howard County pays $35 a day, per inmate, to keep women at the Miami County facility.

Those are all reasons why Rogers said county officials need to renovate the jail, in an effort to house more female inmates.

The idea currently before the Howard County commissioners is to turn one of the jail’s recreational spaces into dormitory housing for inmates awaiting court hearings on low-level charges.

The commissioners Monday approved a contract with DLZ, an architectural firm, to convert an indoor recreational area for an additional 36 beds.

DLZ will work on the specifications for the renovations, and the county is expected to receive bids on the $235,000 proposal in eight weeks.

Almost all of the inmates at the jail are there because they were arrested and haven’t been able to bond out. They are awaiting court hearings, and haven’t been convicted of any crime.

If the jail created more beds in a dormitory, it would be possible to turn one of the larger units at the jail into a female wing, Assistant Jail Commander Robin Byers explained.

Rogers said the female count at the jail has been more than 30 “for years,” but that the jail is “breaking new ground” by having almost 80 women.

“It’s not ideal, but we’re still complying with the state jail inspector,” Rogers said.

Overall, the jail has been housing around 350 inmates in recent months, but the percentage of female inmates has grown significantly.

Rogers said his jail staff also has been doing a good job of moving inmates to the Indiana Department of Correction, as soon as an inmate is convicted of a crime and sentenced.

The rising numbers of female inmates “seems to be crime driven,” Rogers said, and more of a national problem than a Kokomo-area problem, he added.

In her letter, Miller specifically complained about judges setting high bonds, and about cases not moving through the court system in a timely fashion.

Rogers said he wasn’t sure about those claims, saying that once a bottleneck of cases was largely cleared (adding a fourth Howard County Superior Court helped), the jail numbers have dropped and stayed relatively low.

“But the female population right now is what scares us,” Rogers said. “It’s not manageable.”

County officials don’t have estimates on what it might cost to convert what is now an indoor basketball court into a dormitory, but the idea has been around for years, and might soon happen. The jail currently has two indoor and two outdoor courts, Byers said.

The inmates also complained of mold, none of which was visible during a recent visit to the jail. Rogers classified those concerns as unfounded.

“I don’t know that we have a mold problem, but I know there’s an effort to keep this jail one of the best jails in the state,” Rogers said.

• Scott Smith is a Kokomo Tribune staff writer. He may be reached at 765-454-8569 or via email at scott.smith@kokomotribune.com