Law enforcement center opening June 1
RED OAK - Less than two years after voters overwhelmingly approved the project, Montgomery County’s new law enforcement center will be holding its first inmates by June.
Sheriff Joe Sampson said his department is preparing for a June 1 date for moving the inmates from the current 100-year-old jail to the new $6 million facility a few hundred feet west on Coolbaugh Street.
With improved safety the lynchpin of the new law enforcement center, Sampson is anxious to relocate.
“Things are going to be done a lot differently with this new facility,” Sampson said.
From the moment an inmate arrives in a secured garage area, Sampson said the entire process will be safer not only for his deputies, but for the inmates as well.
With the current 14-bed jail, Sampson is unable to segregate inmates as well as he will in the new 24-bed facility.
“We will be able to classify them the way they should be,” Sampson said. “The ones who have been sentenced will be separated from the ones who haven’t, and the ones with felonies will be separate from the misdemeanors.”
Also gone will be the days of having to relocate female prisoners, or handicapped ones.
“They will all be able to stay here now, instead of the county having to pay for them to be housed in someone else’s jail,” Sampson said.
The law enforcement center will include five separate cell areas. Two minimum security sections will have four cells each, with two bunks in each cell, in addition to a toilet, sink, shower and table where inmates will eat their meals.
Other cell pods include two, single-bed cells for maximum security prisoners; another two-cell pod featuring two, single-bed cells, one of which will be wheelchair accessible; and female designated cells, each with two beds.
Each cell pod will have a common area where prisoners can watch television during the day. The common areas include large windows with one-way glass installed that will allow personnel to look inside the area while not allowing the inmates to see out.
The Emergency 911 dispatch center will be centrally located amongst the cells. The dispatchers will not only be able to monitor inmate activity from their secured location, but electronically control doors as well.
The facility will also include rooms for inmates to meet with their attorney, a medical examination room, and an exercise room.
The exercise room will include the required ceiling window to let in daylight, but nothing else in terms of equipment. Sampson said all the state requires is a room big enough for the prisoners to walk around.
On the administrative side of the center, work is equally progressing on the offices and front lobby area.
During normal business hours, when someone walks into the area they will have a choice of two windows: one with a sheriff’s department employee, the other manned by someone with the Red Oak police department.
The front lobby area will also include a room where family members can talk to inmates via a phone. One-on-one visits will no longer be available.
Past the front office area sits offices for the sheriff, sergeants and deputies, as well as an evidence storage locker.
What hasn’t been built yet is the offices for the Red Oak Police Department. Sampson said they will be constructed where the current Sheriff’s offices are located.
As a result, Red Oak’s police won’t be moving into the facility until well after the sheriff’s department has.
“It will probably work out better that way because we will be able to work out all the kinks and have everything up and running smooth before they move in,” Sampson said.
Montgomery County officials have been working for years trying to replace the current jail with multiple funding proposals defeated at the polls before the 2010 bond issue received 78 percent support from the voters.
Sampson can appreciate the struggle endured to get this new law enforcement center built.
“There has been a lot of thought and effort put into this project by a lot of people in the county,” Sampson said. “And its just about to pay off.”