Criminal system advocates watch, wait as voters mull $175M jail expansion

The Yellowstone County jail is chronically full. Designed for 434 inmates, it hasn’t held fewer than 650 all year, according to Jail Commander Capt. Brandon Smart. 

When the crowding becomes critical, Smart calls judges, attorneys and prison wardens. 

“Come get your people,” Smart says on those calls. “Release your people. Who can we let out? Because every time somebody comes in, somebody’s got to come out. When it’s full, it’s full.” 

Those decisions often involve some risk to the community, according to District Court Judge Colette Davies, who was part of the Detention Facility Working Group, a multidisciplinary body that met for two years to study the jail’s overcrowding.

“And so we’re looking at the roster and everyone’s scratching their head,” Davies said. “Who’s it going to be?” 

As the jail has absorbed more inmates over the years, staff have repurposed storage rooms into cells, Smart told local media and elected officials on a tour of the jail in September. 

Defense attorneys and their clients often meet in hallways instead of private rooms. And in lower-security units of the jail, people sleep on mats crammed end to end on the floor to supplement permanent bunks.  

The American Correctional Association recommends 35 square feet of unencumbered space per person. But Melissa Williams, chief civil attorney for Yellowstone County, said the jail doesn’t satisfy that recommendation. 

In an email to Montana Free Press, Williams referenced a lower-security housing unit where the jail has “individuals bunked on the floor.” There, Williams noted, “I am positive we do not meet that [ACA] standard.” 

The crowding has spurred local leaders to act. A group of law enforcement, courts staff, state and county government officials and local businesses is on a mission to persuade voters this fall to add 332 beds to the jail by passing a $175 million bond and a $20 million annual levy. Ballots go out Oct. 9. 

The bond would fund construction and would be repaid over 20 years. The levy would fund operations and would be permanent. Both must pass in the Nov. 3 election for the project to move forward. 

On a Billings home with a taxable value of $300,000, annual property taxes would increase by $163 a year for the first 20 years while the county is paying off the bond. After that, those yearly taxes would be $99 higher than current levels. 

The bond and levy, if passed, would fund a new 12-bed specialized medical housing unit for inmates, according to a master plan for the proposed expansion. The jail today has a clinic but no dedicated housing for sick inmates.

Construction would take three years, according to the county. The new building would meet the county’s needs through 2049, officials estimate. 

In 2015, voters shot down — by 10 percentage points — a much smaller tax hike that would have helped pay for a new women’s unit. The county then used a bond sale instead to finance the construction. The county still has millions of dollars left to pay back on that, according to Commissioner Mark Morse. 

Yellowstone County Commissioner Mike Waters acknowledged the cost of the bond and levy but said it was a necessary investment in public safety. 

“It is a problem that is not going away,” he said at a press conference at the jail in September. “It’s not getting cheaper. And it is not lost on us how expensive this endeavor is. But we don’t just want to have half measures, or a fix that we will have to come back to the taxpayer in a year or two.” 

CROWDING

The population of Yellowstone County has grown 50% since the jail was built in 1986, according to Federal Reserve Economic Data. 

As the county has grown, so has crime. Just last week, the county assigned a sergeant full-time to manage risks inside the jail from inmates with gang affiliations, Smart said. 

On top of that, Billings hosts an outsized share of state probationers and parolees — many originally from other jurisdictions — due to the concentration of employment, treatment and supervision services, according to the Detention Facility Working Group. 

Probation and parole violations can land people back in custody on new charges or require them to wait for a spot in a state-run prison, treatment or other facility.

Smart said on any given day, there are between 85 and 100 people being held at the jail on behalf of the state. (The state has promised to reduce those numbers by adding space to both men’s and women’s prisons.)

Advocates for expanding the jail say they fear a lawsuit if the bond and levy don’t pass. As a cautionary tale, they point to the current jail, which was built in the aftermath of civil rights claims from 1981. A federal judge had ordered the county to fix the jail’s deficiencies. 

“If we get to the point where I’m told by a federal court that I can’t put more than 434 people in that facility, then this community is going to suffer,” Yellowstone County Attorney Scott Twito said in a video promoting the passage of the proposed tax increases. “And people are going to be getting hurt that don’t need to get hurt.” 

Williams, the county’s civil attorney, said in the same video that if voters defeat the jail expansion measures, the county could lose control of its operations.

“When a facility is overcrowded or the conditions of confinement are not good, and they can’t be good when a facility is severely overcrowded, the federal government comes in and essentially takes over your facility,” Williams said.

That same video includes footage from inside the jail of an inmate attacking a guard with a shank in 2024. The man is now serving 50 years in the Montana State Prison for the attack, state records show. 

Another guard, just 18 years old, was attacked in the same incident, according to Smart, the jail commander. She quit six months later.

As crowding has grown worse, the public has taken note. Smart said officers trying to make an arrest now get pushback. 

“The first thing out of their mouth is, ‘The jail is full. You’re not taking me,’” Smart said. 

EFFORTS TO REDUCE PRESSURE

The jail working group has tried several avenues to reduce crowding. 

Previously, people in jail had to navigate overlapping court dates, GPS and alcohol monitoring companies and bond requirements for municipal, justice and district courts, according to Judge Davies.

Now, those duplicated efforts have been streamlined. People in jail receive all the information at once during a single arraignment, and ideally have just one company to report to for monitoring devices, Davies said. 

The new system clears up what can be a confusing process for defendants, Davies said. And it reduces the number of warrants for defendants who don’t show up for court dates — which in turn cuts down on new bookings.

The jail working group also helped launch a new $6 million wing for short-term incarceration, funded by the county and city. Opened in 2025, it is used largely for drunken driving cases and repeat, low-level offenses that officers think will escalate. The short-term wing can hold someone for no longer than 72 hours. 

Before it was built, officers were at times forced to release drunk drivers. 

“Well, you can take that person down to YCFD and you can book them and print them, but then you have to let them go,” Davies said. “Because there’s no room.”

The county also participates in a state program that subsidizes the cost of ankle monitors and similar devices. 

“So many folks who are at YCDF can’t afford any of the monitoring conditions,” Davies said. “So if you say, ‘Hey, I’ll let you out on your own recognizance as long as you’re on a GPS.’ Well, if you can’t afford a GPS, then you stay at YCDF.” 

The working group has also increasingly used programs that get drug offenders out of jail and into treatment. 

“We’ve been exhaustive in this,” Davies said.  

Not everyone is a fan of jail expansion. Opponents, some of whom have criticized the plan at county meetings, often say not enough is being done to address the underlying factors in jail crowding, such as a lack of access to mental health care and treatment. Davies said it can be difficult to see all the work that’s been done in this vein for people outside the criminal system. 

“Once people really learn about what it is that we’re doing and why we’re asking for this, most folks come on board,” she said. 

Because state law prohibits public employees from advocating for or against a ballot measure, much of the conversation in support of jail expansion has been careful. 

For instance, the city-county public health officer, Jon Forte, wrote in a guest column for The Billings Gazette that the jail’s current condition is failing “our incarcerated neighbors,” staff, and the community. Forte is president of RiverStone Health, the county public health department. 

Forte said crowding makes it hard to stop sicknesses from spreading inside the jail, provide patient privacy or manage psychiatric crises safely. 

“These services are essential to humane care and meaningful rehabilitation,” he wrote. 

Criminal defense attorney Lance Lundvall has been representing clients in Yellowstone County for 29 years. He said jail expansion is “absolutely necessary,” especially as drug usage and violent crime have increased.  

“In the legal community, I would be shocked if everybody wasn’t leaning towards an understanding of, we need expansion,” Lundvall said. “But we need to make sure that we’re educating the general public that is not involved in the criminal justice system, and help them understand that it’s necessary.”

But Lundvall thinks more space for inmates isn’t the only change needed. He said turnover among staff is “out of control,” and that the new medical housing and better clinic included in expansion plans are sorely needed. 

“I’d like to see more resources spent on those things, rather than just building a bigger jail,” Lundvall said. 

Asked whether it’s true, as some argue, that there are people in jail who aren’t a risk to the community, Lundvall said, “absolutely.” Some courts issue what Lundvall called “lengthy” jail sentences for non-violent misdemeanors. 

“We have some judges who are saying, ‘I’m tired of you. Six months flat,’” Lundvall said. “‘You’re going to serve your entire sentence.’”

Still, Lundvall said, that doesn’t negate the need for more jail space, in part to protect inmates and staff. Lundvall represented the man who attacked and stabbed the detention officer featured in the promotional video. 

“I have the utmost respect for those that work at the jail, and I do think that what they do is a very dangerous and important job,” he said. “And, you know, any deficiencies that I feel about the jail have nothing to do with the staff themselves. They are hard, dedicated workers.” 

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