Yuma News Now

Yuma, Arizona - The goal of the Yuma County jail is to ensure the safety of the community while jail staff maintains the security of the facility and its prisoners. This goal can only be accomplished by adhering to specific policies and standards.  We regularly review these policies and standards to determine if modifications are necessary to maintain a safe - and cost efficient - environment in which to accomplish these goals. 

The Yuma County Jail is funded in part by a Jail District that receives County sales tax. With the current downturn in the economy, the Jail sales tax revenue has also decreased.

At the same time, the Jail is seeing an unanticipated, dramatic increase in prisoners and an increase in their related length of stay in custody.  These two factors increase the burden on the system and therefore increase the cost of operations.  During this economic downturn, we continue to research, identify and address the underlying causes of these increases but these issues have caused the Sheriff’s Office to consider several methods of reducing the cost of our daily operations. In fact, over the next few weeks, several current operations will undergo changes. This communication today will help keep you, the public, the inmates and their families informed.

Effective July 7th, all inmate mail - both incoming and outgoing- will be limited to post cards.    Mail received or posted as of July 7th, other than post cards, will be returned to sender.  This restriction does not pertain to “Legal Mail” which is defined as correspondence between an inmate, the courts or their attorney.

Similarly, Inmate to inmate mail will be discontinued as of July 7th.

These changes in operating policy will allow us to redirect the manpower necessary to handle the mail as it is received and sent, as well as reduce the possibility of contraband being introduced into the jail.

Other changes in the Jail’s operation will be forthcoming and in all cases we will attempt to keep you informed of the changes and their effective dates to make the transition smoother.

We will continue to provide an efficient operation that does not compromise the safety and security of the community, the Jail staff and the prisoners but still assures that the rights of the prisoners are being met.