The Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office (MCSO) is ahead of schedule in meeting its goal of decommissioning Tent City by November, 2017.
Executive Chief of Detention Tracy Haggard stated, “The only remaining population is in ConTents, where about 300 individuals who are permitted to continue their employment while serving their sentences, spend the night. We are developing a plan to move them into walled facilities.”
“O” Yard, which contained tents for about 100 female inmates, has been completely dismantled. Tents in “N” Yard, which housed about 300 male inmates, are coming down this week. The tents are in a variety of conditions, depending on their age and use. Some are being disposed of and others are being stored.
The infrastructure that supported the tents, including framework, electrical fixtures, and fans, will be auctioned through standard Maricopa County procedures. The neon electric “Vacancy” sign and the stone marker that had been placed near the opening of the facility are being stored pending a determination of their historic and financial value.
Future use of the Tent City site is in the planning stage.
Tent City opened in 1993 to help relieve overcrowding in Maricopa County jails caused by harsher sentencing guidelines in that “tough on crime” era. Originally built to handle up to 2100 inmates, its peak population reached 1700. In recent years, the population dropped to 700-800.
Tent City structures were military-style barracks tents with cots erected on a concrete slab over a gravel surface. Though presented to the public and the media as an extreme environment, inmates spent most of their time inside air conditioned day rooms. The mobility afforded by a sentence to Tents made it preferable to a more restricted walled facility for inmates who were serving up to a year for misdemeanor offenses.