People sleep Wednesday in a holding cell at the Clark County Detention Center. The jail is designed to hold about 2,860, but the usual population has grown to more than 3,700. Photo by John Locher. Officer G. Rumbaugh searches a man Wednesday at the Clark County Detention Center. Photo by John Locher. Women sleep on cots at the Clark County Detention Center. Sheriff Bill Young wants to expand a house arrest program to alleviate overcrowding. Photo by John Locher.

When it opened in 2002, the South Tower of the Clark County Detention Center nearly doubled the overcrowded jail's capacity.

But even at the grand opening ceremony, jail officials predicted the new building would be filled to the brim within a year or two. They were right.

The jail was designed to hold about 2,860 inmates, but the usual population has grown to more than 3,700 and shows no signs of slowing down.

"We're in a crisis," Sheriff Bill Young said.

Hundreds of inmates are bused to other jails, sleep on cots and linger for days in cramped holding cells waiting for an open bunk. By the end of this three-day weekend, the number of inmates probably will surpass 3,800 for the first time, said Deputy Chief Mikel Holt, who runs the jail for the Metropolitan Police Department.

"We are getting close to just not being able to find enough space," Holt said. "I lose a lot of sleep thinking about what to do next."

With short-term options running out and plans for another facility years away, the sheriff, defense lawyers and county officials believe a federal lawsuit or investigation could come at any time.

"Absolutely we're concerned about federal intervention," Assistant County Manager Elizabeth Quillin said.

"You try to be proactive. You try to forecast, but no one could have forecasted our growth," Quillin said.

Clark County Public Defender Phil Kohn said the overcrowded conditions raise tension among the inmates, and when inmates are on edge, bad things can happen.

"With these people on top of each other, somebody is going to get hurt because they're weak, and it's going to cost the county millions," Kohn said. "It's a recipe for disaster."

Overcrowding at the county lockup is nothing new.

In 1978 a group of inmates filed a federal lawsuit against the county because of conditions that were "oppressive, barbaric, degrading, dangerous to their lives, health and safety and violative of their basic rights as citizens and human beings."

The lawsuit led to a consent decree that put the jail under the eye of U.S. District Judge Roger Foley, who at one point ordered the jail to reduce its population from about 400 to 178 inmates. About 250 inmates were being held on felonies.

In response to the consent decree, the county opened the 1,488-bed Clark County Detention Center in 1984. Within a decade the jail population surpassed 2,000 inmates, and in 1997 a U.S. Department of Justice investigation found overcrowding and conditions at the jail that "caused serious harm and death to the detainees."

Jail administrators made changes after the investigation, but the inmate population continued to grow. In 2002 the county opened the $86 million South Tower, which boosted the number of jail beds to 2,857.

By 2004 the average jail population topped 3,000.

As the number of inmates grew, jail administrators found space where they could. About 250 inmates are housed at other jails, including about 25 in Lincoln County. Several hundred inmates sleep on cots, and several hundred more sit in holding cells.

In one two-story module in the North Tower, 20 inmates sleep on cots placed along walls and in the middle of a common area. In the holding cells, inmates wait as many as four days for a regular bunk. The cells were designed to temporarily hold inmates for about a day, and the only furniture in them are wooden benches lining the walls.

Inmates curl up on the benches. When those fill up they lie on the floor.

"When you're putting people on top of each other and you're putting them on cots ... you're going to get somebody hurt," Kohn said. "It's a powder keg."

Kohn said his office already has been preparing to sue the county over conditions at the jail in anticipation of an inmate request. He doesn't think it will take long.

"Every day that we lose, we're one day closer to catastrophe," he said.

Jail officials have worked with judges and the courts to streamline sentencing and inmate release procedures. In many cases, jailers can use their discretion to release inmates on their own recognizance or put them on house arrest.

The sheriff wants to expand the house arrest program in hopes it will help alleviate overcrowding and increase the consequences for many petty criminals who aren't getting any jail time because of the overcrowding.

The sheriff recently unveiled his proposal after he grew frustrated with the slow progress of a planned county facility to house 1,000 nonviolent low-level offenders. The proposal, which Young first pitched a year ago, would have put large tentlike structures at a sewage treatment plant on the far east side of the valley.

County officials shot down the plan because of the high cost of hooking up utilities at the site and strong community opposition. The county recently hired a consultant to find another site. The report is due in about six months, and the facility wouldn't be built for two or three years, Quillin said.

Young said he is frustrated with the county's progress. Under his plan the facility could be built in about six months for about $4 million, he said.

"I'm out of here in four months ... but I want to be on the record they're going to regret dragging their feet," Young said two weeks ago at a meeting of local criminal justice representatives.

Even if it already existed, the low-level offender facility would only affect the roughly 450 jail inmates who are serving sentences for misdemeanors.

County officials predict they'll need another 2,000 high-security beds by 2010. Plans for that facility are in the very early stages, Quillin said.

In the meantime, Holt and his staff will continue their search for solutions to the ever-growing flood of inmates heading to the detention center.

"No matter what we do, there's always another one coming through the back door," Holt said.