MDC employees urge Bernalillo County to replace jail leadership

More than 100 Bernalillo County jail officers packed a county commission meeting and pressed county leaders to remove the Metropolitan Detention Center warden, arguing that safety, morale and communication inside the Albuquerque jail have deteriorated.

AFSCME New Mexico said Local 2499 members, including the Bernalillo County Corrections Officer Association, have raised workplace safety and morale concerns and collected more than 1,000 signatures supporting the warden’s removal. The public appeal puts pressure on commissioners, who oversee MDC through the county’s detention system and its Detention Facility Advisory Board.

The push comes less than two years after Bernalillo County publicly selected a new MDC warden on April 26, 2024. County hiring materials for the position were posted Jan. 18, 2024 and listed the job as full-time regular at 100 Dean Miera Dr SW in Albuquerque, a reminder that the leadership now under fire is relatively recent.

The complaints matter because MDC is not just another county workplace. It is the county’s largest detention facility, and problems there ripple into overtime costs, staffing shortages, inmate supervision, medical care, transport and classifications. Bernalillo County itself has acknowledged persistent operational strain at the jail, seeking public-safety-focused funding in February 2025 to upgrade security and operational equipment and saying the changes were needed to help keep staff safe and inmates properly cared for.

County records also show that MDC has been under regular oversight and repeated scrutiny. The Board of County Commissioners created the Detention Facility Advisory Board to review county adult detention facilities, and Bernalillo County posted updates in July and August 2024 about investigations into erroneous inmate releases. On Aug. 9, 2024, the county said MDC had restored services after an internet outage that disrupted operations.

The current dispute lands against a broader record of trouble at the jail. Search results show prior reporting on a jail medical audit that found care at MDC unconstitutional, on numerous deaths at the facility since 2020, and on a 2022 analysis describing the jail as plagued by understaffing and unsafe conditions. Those findings give the employees’ complaints a wider significance than a simple personnel fight.

The county’s next move will shape not only who leads MDC, but whether Bernalillo County believes the jail can stabilize under its current administration or needs a new hand at the top.