A cell inside the Iowa State Penitentiary in Fort Madison. Photo taken March 31, 2011. (Matt Nelson/SourceMedia Group News)

DES MOINES — Iowa’s forecast for future growth in its prison population took an unexpected upturn in the latest 10-year projections.

If current trends continue, the occupancy rate at the nine state prisons is expected to increase from 8,787 as of last June 30 to about 11,330 inmates by fiscal 2021, according to projections issued this week by Paul Stageberg of the Department of Human Rights’ division of criminal and juvenile justice planning.

The state should set a record high prison population of 9,259 by the end of fiscal 2013 “with yearly increases thereafter,” the new report indicates.

In an interview, Stageberg said the revised estimates signal a return to population pressures that Iowa experienced in past years: Probation revocations and new court commitments will rise, and changes to sentencing and sex offender laws will keep inmates behind bars or under supervision longer.

Turnover among Iowa Board of Parole members and state budget issues have affected the corrections system in recent years, but Stageberg said other factors also have contributed to some short-term “explosive growth” in inmate numbers that impact long-term projections.

“In the last 18 months or thereabouts, we have started to see an increase in admissions again… . The forecast suggests a continued rise in the population starting after this year,” he said. “Now, how the state responds to that can help avoid beds. But if things don’t change, we’re going to see increased populations.”

John Baldwin, director of the Department of Corrections, said Iowa will have a design capacity of 7,666 beds in its prison system once projects in Mitchellville and Fort Madison are completed by fiscal 2014. The new projections would push the population to 147.8 percent of the system’s design capacity in 10 years.

But Baldwin said there are options available to head off the potential overcrowding or the need for a new prison construction phase by managing the inmate numbers more effectively.

“Truthfully, no one in this state, in my mind, wants to pay for corrections to be at 10,500 or 11,000 (inmates),” he said.

“We hope to use this leverage to talk about some changes. Will people pay for corrections adding 2,500 more inmates? That comes with a cost. There are other ways to accomplish that,” he said. “Our goal is to work hard not to have to build a prison. We think we should do this with appropriate programming in community-based corrections.”

He said the projections were surprising since inmate numbers had stabilized for a time.

“We have proven that we can stabilize the prison population. Our goal in the next 12 months is to show that we can actually decrease it again,” Baldwin said.

A copy of the full report can be found here.