The Texas Commission on Jail Standards is scheduled to do an occupancy inspection at the 177,000-square-foot facility on Sept. 22.
The inspection will center on life safety issues, testing whether the smoke detection equipment is sufficient and that the plumbing is operational, among other things.
If the inspection goes well, inmates may be moved in 10 weeks later.
That’s how long jail officials estimate it will take to train staff at the new jail. Bob Patterson, jail administrator, said the training would be a continuation of what jailers do at the downtown facility.
Patterson said he anticipates most of the training to be done on overtime on what are usually days off for the jailers.
“You can’t take a crew of people into a green building,” he said.
In May, Sheriff Dan Smith said he anticipated it costing the county $118,000 in overtime to facilitate the move.
Among the many things that will be different for jailers assigned to the new jail is that touch screen activated electronic security controls will replace the older push button type system now in place downtown.
The just under $38 million jail consists of a single large arterial hallway that branches off into holding areas for prisoners, kitchen, laundry, infirmary and exercise yards.
The hallway and prisoner areas are monitored from elevated control rooms that give jail workers an eye in the sky.
“For the guards there is a more open feel where they won’t feel like they are prisoners also,” said County Judge Jon Burrows.
The jail has 658 beds including a 24-bed infirmary. Examination rooms are plentiful and the county anticipates a dentist working on inmates at the site. Right now all prisoners who need dental work are transported to a dentist’s office offsite.
“We’re looking to provide onsite services as much as we can,” Patterson said.
It’s not just the availability of a dentist office that should cut down on transporting prisoners. The new jail is built within 100 yards of the district court building. In the future, the county courts building, which handles misdemeanors, will be added to the site.
The new facility will allow prisoners to be escorted through a secure passageway and into a courtroom rather than being transported through town, which is the current arrangement.
There are two types of areas for housing prisoners. Those charged with low level crimes will be placed in a dormitory type setting where bunks are in rows in an open air setting.
The large room has metal tables with chairs connected to it in a common area and a bank of phones on a wall.
The prisoners will not need to leave their dorm or cluster for visitations, as the jail will have video visitation capabilities. Those who visit prisoners will do so over a phone from the lobby with video images available to both parties.
The more high level offenders will be housed in clusters, two to a cell with eight to 10 cells opening up to a commons area.
Guards will be able to monitor three clusters at a time from the windows of the raised observation area.
Other features of the jail include a sally port area large enough for buses and several chase areas that allow county maintenance workers to work on plumbing or other jobs without mingling with prisoners.
One thing that Burrows pointed out about the chase areas is that county workers will now have the ability to track where sewage clogs originate.
Two years ago the county purchased a grinder for the downtown area to help deal with sewage chokes tracked to prisoners flushing items like their jumpsuits down the toilet.
The kitchen and the laundry area at the jail are capable of handling much higher prisoner numbers.
Burrows said that is by design. The building is sized for expansion.
In the future, the building could easily be expanded to house 1,200 prisoners.
