Overcrowding at the Cape Girardeau County Jail is a daily reality.

The jail's capacity is 220 inmates, and on Thursday there were 230 inmates in the jail. In 2015, the average daily occupancy at the jail was 225.

"Are we overcrowded? Yes," said Capt. J.P. Mulcahy of the Cape Girardeau County Sheriff's Department. "But is it manageable? Yes."

Inmates without a bed sleep on plastic mattresses, putting them 6 to 12 inches above the floor, in common areas in their assigned pods, Mulcahy said.

Mulcahy is tasked with coordinating 25 jail officers, a couple of whom are supervisors.

In the morning Wednesday, the sheriff's department took inmates on three separate transports to a mental-health evaluation, a doctor's appointment and a dentist appointment.

The department is obligated by state statute to take inmates to medical appointments, but that leaves fewer jailers on hand.

Mulcahy also received a call about a fight Wednesday.

He is cognizant of keeping co-defendants separated and being aware of any other street associations, but it's difficult to know 230 different lists of street beefs that might make their way into the jail.

In October, there was a vicious six-inmate melee that ended with two jailers being assaulted. At the time, Mulcahy said the fight was abnormal merely because of the number of participants.

"The officer-to-inmate ratio is crucial to look at in running a facility," Mulcahy said. "The requirement of more manpower is always in question."

Capt. David James compared the jail to a city, but with an abnormal number of violent residents.

Possession of a controlled substance is a common felony charge in Cape Girardeau County, but Mulcahy had only one inmate charged with such a crime in the jail Wednesday. One inmate had violated a judge's order.

"You may look at that as minor, but he's already proven he's not going to do what the judge says," Mulcahy said.

Mulcahy read off the charges from the jail roster. Most inmates were charged with assault, domestic assault, robbery or murder.

The jail is housing five individuals charged with murder, although none originated in Cape Girardeau County.

"All of these guys are supposed to be here," Mulcahy said of the inmate roster.

Judge Gary Kamp said he has been instituting drug and alcohol monitors in part to keep nonviolent offenders out of jail.

"We don't have a lot of monitor violations," Kamp said.

He added for years, the Cape Girardeau County prosecuting attorney's office has made it a point to issue criminal summonses for nonviolent felonies.

"The high jail population, it results from good law enforcement and that we've had a lot of serious crime," Kamp said. "When you have a serious crime, those cases take time to go through the system."

Kamp and Sheriff John Jordan share a theory on why the jail is more crowded, however: The local Missouri state public defender's office cannot represent defendants from the same case, creating an ethical conflict in which an attorney may have to come from several counties away to provide representation.

"They've reduced caseloads. They're no longer able to represent all these defendants," Jordan said. "That is costing a lot of money. Most of the jails around the state are experiencing this type of backlog, and we're an extremely busy circuit."

Jordan said public defenders have told him they are overwhelmed because of the new rules that they can have only so many defendants assigned to them.

Missouri State Public Defender director Michael Barrett disagrees there was a change in policy, contending there always has been an ethical conflict in representing defendants in the same case.

"There are divergent interests," Barrett said of defendants in the same case.

Barrett classified the current system as inefficient.

His solution is to allow the public defender's office to hire local, private attorneys to represent defendants in a case when there is an ethical conflict.

The office already is doing this using a budget of about $2.27 million to contract out 3,700 cases. Barrett said even more cases could be contracted out, which would require a budgetary increase from the state legislature.

Barrett also noted a study from accounting firm Rubin Brown in 2013 compared the hours public defenders could spend on a case to private attorneys.

The office's analysis of that report was the public defender's office would need 219 new attorneys to match effective private counsel.

Barrett said this is unrealistic, because his office last was authorized to hire a new attorney six years ago.

Cape Girardeau County is taking steps to make its courts more efficient. Cape Girardeau County has a tentative plan for a $20 million new courthouse funded by a use tax, although a finalized plan will not be considered until next fall.

Mulcahy and Jordan agreed having more court space would allow cases to be processed much faster.

"We have six judges, and Cape Girardeau County only has five courtrooms," Mulcahy said.

Commissioner Charlie Herbst said so far, there has not been any discussion of adding to the jail. Last year, the commission approved a budget increase for the sheriff's department to hire personnel.

In 2000, the jail was expanded with 150 more beds.

Jordan was proud of the fact there was no need for a tax increase to pay for the expansion.

It was accomplished in part through a deal with the U.S. Marshals Service that committed a third of the jail to federal prisoners in exchange for funding.

On Wednesday, there were 18 federal prisoners in the jail, but Jordan said the yearly average from 2015 was between 36 and 42 inmates.

The county is paid at a rate of $50.82 per federal inmate. The county received federal payments of $692,000 in 2015 and $673,000 in 2014, more than the expense of taking care of the inmates.

Mulcahy said the cost for an average inmate is $35 per day.

Cape Girardeau County Treasurer Roger Hudson said the county still is making annual payments of $560,000 a year on the jail expansion.

"When you're responsible for feeding, clothing, medication and adjudication, that's a lot of responsibility," Jordan said.

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