BRANDON QUESTER/WTE A controller with the Laramie County Sherrff's detention center oversees operations within the control center at the downtown detention facility in Cheyenne Thursday afternoon.

CHEYENNE -- Although Wyoming’s population has essentially remained the same for more than two decades, the number of employees working to oversee the state’s prisons and local jails has nearly tripled, according to federal justice statistics.

A Wyoming Department of Corrections spokeswoman said tougher laws mean more prisoners. A local jail commander here in Laramie County cited that, the lack of a work release program and an inconsistent juvenile justice system as reasons for more incarcerations and thus more corrections employees.

Melinda Brazzale, public information officer for the Wyoming Department of Corrections, said the public has demanded stronger penalties for crimes.

“Even for substance abuse,” Brazzale said. “You end up with more people in prison.”

In 1982, there were about 510,000 people living in Wyoming, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. The population has waned and waxed since, with approximately 515,000 residents in 2006.

During that time, the number of employees working to oversee local jails and state prisons increased from 583 in 1982 to 1,570 in 2005, a near threefold increase, according to the U.S. Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Statistics.

Corrections employees working to oversee state prisons more than doubled, from 429 in 1982 to 919 in 2005, according to the bureau. Detention employees for local jails in Wyoming more than quadrupled in that time, from 154 to 651.

As of the end of March, there were 2,043 people incarcerated in state prisons, according to Brazzale.

The average cost to house each inmate for a year is $43,500, Brazzale said. The entire operating budget for the Department of Corrections is $243 million per year, she said.

In 1995, there were about 1,300 inmates in Wyoming prisons, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics.

Historical statistics on the number of inmates in Wyoming’s local jails weren’t immediately available.

Here in Laramie County, the jail held about 60 to 70 people in the 1980s, said Gerry Luce, spokesman for the sheriff’s department.

When the new jail was built in 1989, it held 99 people and was expanded to house 324 inmates four years ago, Luce said.

The sheriff’s department has increased its number of detention officers from about 20 in the early 1980s to about 70 now, Luce said. The number of patrol deputies has remained the same during that time, with about 35 on staff, Luce said.

The old jail, which was built in 1917 and used a bar and cell cage system, needed less officers to operate in the 1980s, Luce said.

The new jail uses a pod system, with inmates mixing and interacting with each other and detention officers. More detention officers are needed for such a system, Luce said.

“The type of jail that we maintain today is more intensive in the fact that the supervision style is more direct,” Luce said.

Sheriff’s Capt. Bill Long, who oversees the detention division for the department, said contracted around-the-clock mental and physical health care for inmates at the county jail costs about $1 million per year. He said that could increase as much as 25 percent in the coming year.

“Justice is not cheap, it’s not swift,” Long said.

Drugs and alcohol continue to be a contributing factor to incarceration, the captain said. Long said the jail is unable to provide a continuum of services for inmates.

Local jail officials acknowledged reasons other than tougher laws behind the increase in inmates and need for employees.

Luce said as certain communities in the state grow because of the energy boom, so does a transient population, full of people with no real ties to the state. He said many people in the energy field are hard working, but the transient population can bring certain crimes.

Also, white collar and Internet crimes have created a demand for new legislation and thus increased demand for prison space, Long said.

“Those things have been expanded,” he said of the new laws.

Long mentioned several ways Wyoming could potentially decrease its prison and jail population.

The captain said the state needs to have a uniform standard for dealing with juvenile crime.

“Wyoming is all over the map in regard to this area,” Long said of juvenile justice.

Adult crime typically has its roots in juvenile problems, Long said. Providing a continuum of services for juveniles -- and even dealing with the problems in family court -- could help solve some of these problems, Long said.

Long said alternative work programs -- such as picking up trash -- could be a more effective deterrent for certain individuals and help relieve the jail population.

Those paying their debt to society also could do volunteer work with seniors or clean graffiti, Long said.

“Our parks should be immaculate,” Long said.