By Alabama Public Radio
Montgomery, AL – This month, county jails held one-thousand-299 inmates considered ready for transfer to prisons. That figure includes more than 800 who had been there more than 30 days, which is the legal limit the state can leave them with a county. Before the court order, the number of state inmates in county jails beyond the 30-day grace period hit 28-hundred. After the order, with stepped-up paroles and inmate transfers to private prisons, the number dropped to zero. But now the prison system is at more than double capacity, with 27-thousand inmates, and the backlog in jails is growing again.