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For jail leaders, avoiding a violent riot at the crowded Metropolitan Detention Center or the expensive wrath of a federal judge has come down to one thing: a sales pitch.

That pitch began Tuesday as Bernalillo County Commission members dug into a jail proposal to expand the community custody program, which by a judge's blessing moves nonviolent inmates out of their cells and back to their homes for the remainder of their sentence.

For the last 11 years, the jail has used the program to help ease crowding. But, county Chief of Corrections Ron Torres said, mixed reaction from judges has left hundreds of inmates in jail who could otherwise be on community custody.

As the county, nearly six months into sole custody of the jail, faces a volatile mix of record high population and record low staffing, leaders are looking at exactly what the judges' role - if any - should be.

While a proposal presented at the commission meeting Tuesday would remove judicial oversight of the program entirely, Commission Chairman Alan Armijo said the county first wants to work with judges on expanding the community custody plan.

That's the first sales pitch, but getting judges on board might be a tough sell.

Judges agree the jail population has reached crisis level - at around 2,400 daily, it's the highest since opening in 2002 - but are leery of giving up control of inmates' fates.

"Ultimately I'm the one responsible for the criminal cases assigned to me. I would like to have the final word," said Metro Court Judge Daniel Ramcyzk.

County Manager Thaddeus Lucero, warming up his selling points, said the county is ready to take full responsibility for crimes committed by inmates on community custody.

He hopes that type of commitment will help ease judges' minds about either putting more people on community custody or about relinquishing their oversight role.

"They worry about getting bit," Lucero said. "But we're going to take on the responsibility and they aren't comfortable with that."

Ramcyzk said he appreciates the county's gesture, but isn't swayed to give up oversight.

Metro Court Chief Judge Judith Nakamura said she isn't comfortable with the idea either, and believes elected officials are in a more neutral position to consider public safety than are jail administrators in charge of teeming facilities.

She's asked jail and county leaders to the judges' roundtable in November to figure out a possible compromise.

The county wants judges to use the program more. Officials also note that community custody programs in state and federal prisons give the jail administration full control without intervention from judges.

But Nakamura said negotiating more judicial application of community custody probably won't work because judges now are probably approving inmates for community custody as much as they ever will.

Nakamura said most of her judges consider the release program one tool among many, including probation or parole and other treatment options.

"Not all judges consider it always the appropriate tool," she said. "I use it quite a bit, but it depends."

Some order dozens of inmates a month onto the program. Others order barely a handful.

Deputy County Manager John Dantis, who manages public safety, said that different application of the program isn't fair to inmates who qualify for the program but are assigned to a judge who doesn't apply it.

Dantis and Nakamura said judges and the jail leaders have been talking for weeks about ways to alleviate the jail crowding.

"They are simply trying to foster a dialogue whereby they can get more action in that area," said District Court Chief Judge William Lang. "And understandably."

Jail leaders say the community custody program is necessary to relieve crowding that has pushed them to house inmates at other county jails. It's been necessary to stay below a population threshold set by an ongoing 1995 inmate rights lawsuit.

The jail is paying about $50 a day to house each of about 100 inmates in the Cibola County jail, Dantis said.

If surrounding county jails weren't full, more Bernalillo County inmates would be transferred, he said. But that option is closed.

Which leaves the understaffed jail struggling with officer and inmate safety as an estimated 2,400 inmates a day jam into space built for 2,100.

Brian Pori, one of the lawyers representing inmates in the ongoing case, told commissioners Tuesday that if the jail fails to bring its population down to about 2,100 inmates, it will face continued litigation and possibly federal fines exceeding thousands of dollars.

All the jail must do, he said, is meet the population requirement once and it will be freed from his decade-old lawsuit, which has cost taxpayers more than $2 million in legal fees.

Commissioner Teresa Cordova said while it is important to watch the county's purse, it is equally, if not more, important to watch out for community safety.

"Clearly we can't just talk about saving money without talking about community safety," she said.

Torres said, though, that only about 6 percent of the jail's population is incarcerated for violent offenses and none are candidates for community custody.

He said some inmates on community custody do commit crimes, try to escape or fail sobriety tests.

Overall, though, recidivism by inmates in the program is about 3 percent, he said, versus 33 percent or higher for inmates placed on probation or parole following a cell-based sentence.

"This program is safe," Torres said.

Still, Cordova and the commission agreed to postpone voting on the jail's proposal to gather more information.

The deferral gives Torres, Dantis and County Manager Thaddeus Lucero a month to make their expansion plan pitch to judges.

If that fails, though, the final pitch is to the commissioners who could close the deal to sidestep judicial oversight with a vote Nov. 28.