Construction underway for new Cache County Jail
Administrators at the Cache County Jail have been trying to get a new facility for two decades, and they are finally getting their wish.
A new jail is being built near 200 North and 1200 West. It will replace the current jail, which was built in 1964.
“I honestly didn’t think, in my career, that we’d see this. We’ve had so many drawbacks,” said Sgt. Terri Duncombe, the jail’s administrative sergeant. “This is great.”
The current jail’s capacity is 77, but it is now housing more than 90 and has held as many as 107 inmates at one time.
“The only way we can fit them all is by triple bunking,” said Lt. Kim Cheshire, who has been the county’s jail commander since April. “We have inmates in places where we hadn’t planned on having them.”
One cell in the jail’s E block was built for holding 28, but 48 inmates currently live there. The jail was too small when it was built, Cheshire said.
Administrators were close to getting a new jail in the early 1990s but couldn’t get the support they needed. They ended up remodeling the old jail in 1993.
Cache County Sheriff Lynn Nelson said, “We remodeled the current jail and spent a lot of money but didn’t get much out of it.”
The new jail will be able to house 360 inmates — a capacity Cheshire said it will probably reach in the next 10 years. The facility has the ability to expand to hold more than 900 prisoners.
The Work Diversion Program, which started in 1997, is one way those in the justice system have dealt with the overcrowding. Judges sentence people to stay home at night but do work through the program during the day, instead of sending them to jail.
These people help with recycling at Utah State University and with various city crews that need additional workers. Neither the county nor the convicts get paid, but the work helps cities with their budgets and benefits the community, Cheshire said.
“It used to be up to the judge to decide who would be put on this program. But now, because of overcrowding, it’s up to us,” he said. “Instead of just letting people out early, we put them to work.”
The county also deals with overcrowding by housing prisoners in nearby counties.
Cache County has been sending inmates to other county facilities for the past three years. Nelson said the county spent $230,000 the first year, $360,000 in 2001 and $675,000 last year.
“It was getting pretty obvious that that was an extremely expensive way to take care of the problem,” he said. “Our population has just been increasing almost exponentially.
“The population of the valley has a little more than doubled [since the current jail was built], but the jail population has gone up at a dramatically higher rate,” Nelson said.
Increases in the number of prisoners result from a number of factors, but mainly that old laws have changed and new laws have been created, he said. For example, it is now mandatory for people to be arrested and jailed for domestic violence. That wasn’t law when the jail was built.
Cheshire said the new jail will cost $13 million to $14 million.
“The jail will not be the Taj Mahal, but it will be safe. It takes a lot of money to make buildings safe,” he said. “We have to go by federal courts’ standards and take care of people in a humane way.
“You can’t put a normal toilet in a jail cell, because it would be destroyed. All sinks and toilets have to be made out of stainless steel,” Cheshire said.
The required doors cost $1,100 each and weigh 315 pounds apiece, he said. Even the screws require a special tool to turn them.
“Not only do you have to beef up the doors, but you have to beef up the door jams and everything else,” Cheshire said. “People need to realize that you can’t just buy a door; you have to buy special things. It has to be made to last.”
“The new jail has the ability to last a long time,” Nelson said. “It is built to be expanded as the need arises. It takes us, we hope, a long time into the future.”
Duncombe said the new jail will be more secure than the current jail, which has had a few breakouts in its history. About six years ago, someone cut the exercise fence during the night. A prisoner escaped the next day, while other inmates distracted the deputy, she said.
Cheshire said in the mid-1980s, a man snuck a knife into the jail and pulled it on a deputy, who let him escape.
A new fence has since been erected, and the prisoners are now searched three times, but the new jail will make it easier to guard them, he said.
The new facility was designed through the cooperation of LJSH, a Salt Lake City architecture firm, Sahara, the company building the jail, and county representatives, Cheshire said. Ground broke for the new jail on Oct. 17, 2002. The building is scheduled to be finished January 2004.
The jail is being built in a radial pattern, where the first two floors contain seven blocks, each consisting of 24 prisoners who share a day room and two showers. The seven blocks will share a chapel and three classrooms, where everything from Alcoholics Anonymous to literacy and job hunting can be taught.
“We can add more and more classes as we get the ability,” Duncombe said.
Cheshire said, “This jail will be more efficient than the current jail and will need fewer deputies to watch the prisoners, saving manpower. One deputy will be able to guard an entire block through a central control room, which is far more than the current jail’s floor plan allows.”
About 100 staff members run the current jail, he said.
The cells were prefabricated, meaning they came fully built, including plumbing and electricity that is ready to be connected. Each “pod” contains two cells and weighs more than 60,000 pounds. They were shipped from Atlanta and are now set up, waiting for the rest of the building.
Each cell contains two bunks, a desk, a stool, a toilet, a sink, a light and a window — all pre-made — and will house two prisoners.
The third floor of the building will be dorm-style for prisoners who are on work release, meaning they go to work, then return to the jail.
Inmates on work release are separated from the other prisoners so they can’t be talked into smuggling things in, Cheshire said.
“Even with a strip search, there are places people can hide things,” he said. “This will eliminate that. They won’t mix with the other prisoners, so they can’t be persuaded to bring contraband in.”
A three-story administration building will sit next to the new jail, with a passageway between them. The administration building’s bottom floor will be where the prisoners are brought in and booked before being moved to their cells.
Duncombe said county representatives have been trying to get a new jail built for 20 years but have had a hard time convincing community members that the cost justifies the need.
“Money, politics and the public perspective [have made it take so long],” she said. “They just don’t think there are bad people or those who would break the law living here.”
Deputy Mark Maughan agreed.
“We’re still getting a lot of that,” he said.
Maughan booked a woman for driving under the influence last week. She saw the board that shows the jail’s current inmates and was surprised at how many there were, he said.
“She couldn’t believe that we had that many inmates,” Maughan said. “Even now that we’re getting a new jail, people just don’t realize the need.”
But Cheshire said the public is starting to understand the county needs a new jail or may risk facing a lawsuit for being overcrowded.
“I think the public realizes that we need a new facility,” he said. “It is better to pay now than risk a lawsuit and then have someone else mandate how we do it.”
Nelson said, “I think the public has come to understand that there is a need for a new jail. There’s a general sense in the population that they’re frustrated they have to do anything but comfortable with the feeling that we’ve done all we can with as much as we can.”
Now is the right time to build a new jail for several reasons, he said.
“The interest rates are about the lowest ever, and the construction prices are cheaper than they’ve been in a long time. A lot of things just came together,” he said.
To pay for the jail, the county portion of property taxes has been raised 37 percent.
“In rough numbers, every percentage it goes up, it increases the taxes on the average home about one dollar,” Nelson said. “It’s about 40 bucks a year that people will see their taxes go up to pay for this.”
–kcartwright@cc.usu.edu