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The federal prison complex in Sheridan -- a medium-security prison, a detention center, and a work camp -- sits about 50 miles from Portland, on the edge of Oregon's coastal mountains.
(Google Earth)
The government's medium-security prison in Sheridan, part of the only U.S. prison complex in Oregon, is more than 47 percent over its intended population.
Sheridan's Federal Correctional Institution, built for 769 inmates, held 1,134 as of this week, according to Chris Burke, a U.S. Bureau of Prisons spokesman in Washington, D.C.
The complex's prison work camp held 216 inmates (28 over capacity), and the Federal Detention Center held 514 inmates (6 over).
The overcrowding of the Sheridan complex is scarcely unique. It's a systemic problem that Bureau of Prisons officials have confronted for the last couple of decades, Burke said.
More than half of the prisoners now residing in the federal prison system are serving time for drug and immigration crimes.
A 2012 U.S. Government Accountability Office report noted that the populations in state prisons decline, inmates in the federal prison system increased 9.5 percent from 2006 to 2011 alone.
"Increases in bed space have not kept pace with the increasing federal inmate population," Burke wrote in a response to questions about the overcrowding in Oregon. "Research has shown that crowding and staffing are related to violence in prisons. As crowding goes up, so does violence, and as staffing goes down, violence goes up."
Federal prison officials manage the overcrowding by double and triple bunking inmates, sometimes housing them in space designed for TV rooms, Burke wrote.
"We review available and emerging technologies to look for ways to address crowding in federal facilities," he wrote. "However, the challenge remains as the inmate population remains overcrowded.
Here are some of the latest news stories from around the nation on prison overcrowding and other corrections issues:
-- Bryan Denson