Cochise County hears final draft of jail study; consultants recommend 468‑bed facility and outline site tradeoffs

Bisbee — The Cochise County Board of Supervisors on May 20 heard a final draft of a county jail planning study from consultant Karen Shembach and architects from DLR Group (Gary Rittel and Jacob Reese). The consultants presented a program for a new jail, site‑selection analysis of six candidate locations and a rough order‑of‑magnitude cost and schedule; the board and staff discussed tradeoffs but took no formal action.

Shembach summarized the county and jail data underlying the study, saying Cochise County’s current population is “about 125,000” and citing a forecast that it could reach roughly 130,000 by 2040. She said reported crime and arrests have declined overall while the county’s jail population has risen because inmates are staying longer: “Average daily population was pretty consistent between 250 and 300 inmates, but it did seriously flip up in 2022 and 2023,” she said, noting a rise to about 315–335 average daily in that period.

The consultant emphasized the role of length of stay in driving bed needs. “Admissions are actually down… What is really increasing is the length of stay,” Shembach said, adding that overall average length of stay rose from about 16 days to over 20 days. She also reported demographic and case data from a jail snapshot: about 85% of the population was male, 82% were pretrial, 54% had bond set (46% did not), 65% were Cochise County residents and roughly 79.5% were U.S. citizens. On the snapshot day Shembach said 28% of inmates had been in the jail more than 100 days and she estimated about 40% of the jail population had serious mental‑health or substance‑use issues.

Shembach described alternatives used in other jurisdictions to reduce jail population and bed need, including expanded…