By Betsy Cribb
Christen Mae Pennington, 32, is one of 18 women confined to the Rockbridge Regional Jail.
The mother of four boys now lives with four other women in a cell designed for four. Pennington is the one who sleeps on a mattress on the floor.
“It’s kind of cramped,” she said. “But it’s okay. It’s jail, so I wouldn’t expect anything [more].”
Overcrowding has been a problem at the county jail, off and on, going back years before a proposed expansion was rejected in 2009. The jail, built in 1988 to house 56 inmates, now houses more than twice that number. A relatively new reason for the crowding is the growing number of female inmates.
Jail superintendent John Higgins said the overcrowding is partially due to an increase in crimes committed by women, especially non-violent crimes involving drugs and money.
“Years ago, you really didn’t see a lot of females committing crimes,” Higgins said. “Lately…I notice a lot of embezzlement, bad check writing. Selling prescription drugs is a big one.”
Nationally, too, women in prisons and jails are becoming more common. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, 12.6 percent of local jail inmates are women. Of the 116 inmates in the Rockbridge Regional Jail, the rate is even higher – 16 percent are female.
Pennington is doing time for committing fraud with a Peebles card she found in a Kroger parking lot.
“I hadn’t had any money for three or four years, and so this was like a temptation, you know. I got myself some shoes. I got my sons shoes for their birthdays. And my baby, he was like six months old, and I got him all new summer clothes,” Pennington said.
Pennington was sentenced to 18 months in jail, which started March 4.
Higgins says the crowded cells sometimes cause spats between the inmates.
“I would rather have 100 men than two females,” Higgins said. “Most guys, if they have an issue…they’ll fight it out. Females, they seem to bicker and gripe, bicker and gripe.”
But Pennington says she and her cellmates get along.
“I’ve heard in the other cells a lot of arguing, like really loud, and we’ll mute our TV and listen…that’s kind of like action for us. But we don’t really do that to each other because we get on so well,” Pennington said.
Higgins says a lack of bed space and squabbles between inmates aren’t the only problems the jail faces. Higgins says the jail’s $2.7 million budget just isn’t enough.
“It’s a constant battle to stay within budget,” Higgins said. “When you have overcrowding, that’s where your budget goes. You’ve been used to serving 90 meals and you jump up to 120, it makes a big difference when you start adding it up at the end of the year.”
A few years ago, Higgins proposed a $28 million expansion – $8 million of that to come from local funding. The project would have added 162 beds to the jail.
Higgins’ proposal was rejected because the localities weren’t all prepared to commit to the expense and some local officials questioned whether law-enforcement policies were filling the jails unreasonably.
Higgins, who is also an elected county supervisor, says he believes an expansion could occur in the future, just not during his tenure at the jail.
For now, if the jail gets too crowded, inmates could be sent to other jails, Higgins says.
Pennington said she will spend 90 days at Rockbridge Regional Jail before her name is put on a list to go to Fluvanna’s or Goochland’s Correctional Center for Women.
She says she would rather stay in the crowded Rockbridge Regional Jail than be transferred to one of Virginia’s two women’s prisons.
“I’m not sure how often I’d get to see my kids if I go down the road,” Pennington said.