County Jail Expansion Eases Overcrowding
The first walls are up in the Jay County jail expansion, a project that’s been in the making for eight years. Story in Newslink Indiana.
The Portland jail has been experiencing over crowding for some time now and has been operating much of the time at maximum capacity. However, once the new expansion project is completed the Portland jail should no longer have a problem with housing prisoners.
The old jail had the capacity to hold about 30 to 40 prisoners and the new facility will allow up to 120 cell blocks. There will also be cameras installed in each cell to provide constant supervision.
Along with cameras, according to site manager Jeff Bladder, this jail will feature a central control room that offers a 360-degree view of all the cells from one place.
“The person in the central control can look both up and down to observe at all times the prisoners. That is a very cost effective of doing supervision and in a jail the supervision and labor costs is the number one expense in a jail,” Bladder said.
According to Bladder, in terms of square feet, the current jail is about 14,000, the new expansion will provide 25,000 square feet of additional space.
After the expansion is completed, the next step will involve the remodeling of the old county jail. The new cell blocks should be completed by next fall and the entire project should be finished in late winter of 2011.
The project is currently on schedule and under budget.
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