Sheriff Arnott hosts Roundtable

Greene County soon to open 1,242-bed jail, on budget, on schedule
 
The Greene County Sheriff’s Office held its Sheriff’s Community Roundtable Conference at Willard Elementary South on Thursday, March 3.
During the conference, Greene County Sheriff Jim Arnott took questions from those in attendance. One audience member asked if the new jail was still on track to be in operation by April. Arnott replied that the move-in date would most likely be around that time.
“We're looking at April (or) May depending on the issuance of building permits,” he said. “Just like anybody else, we don't get an exception on that. Everything is on time, on budget, so we’re watching that. We don't have a solid move-in date, but we think April or May.”
Arnott was also asked if the public would have the opportunity to tour the new jail. He replied that the public can currently tour the jail, but after the inmates are moved in, new arrangements would have to be made for members of the public to view the facility.
“We will probably need a little bit of time to get organized, get set up, and then we’ll offer for people to come in,” he said.

Most inmates will attend court via video conference
One person wanted to know how prisoners would be transported from the jail to court and back. Arnott said that videoconferencing, which came into use during the pandemic, is now how most inmates would attend court hearings, meaning they wouldn’t have to leave the facility.
“The majority of our court appearances are going to end up being done through video,” he said. “We have 16 (of) what we call video courtrooms that are available for each court, so there will be no delay in getting the inmates to the video courtrooms and in front of the judge The majority of that will happen there.”
Those inmates who do attend court in person, Arnott added, would be transported by bus or shuttle.
“We’ll know the night before when inmates are to be taken to court,” he said. “They will be transferred (to court) via bus or shuttle from our facility to a part of our old jail, which we’re going to keep in use to house inmates to transfer over to court, if that’s necessary, and when it’s necessary.”

Fate of current facility unknown
However, aside from the portion of the original jail used to house inmates who would be attending court, Arnott said he did not know what would be done with the old facility, as that was a “commission decision.”
“I have no idea,” he said. “That’s a county commission question, because they’re in charge of the building.”
Arnott also discussed how inmates would be transported from the jail after they are released, and the different categories of prisoners which are housed in the jail, including those facing federal or state-level charges.

Rising prisoner population made new facility a necessity
During the conference, Corporal Jennifer Dodson with the GCSO led a presentation on the new jail. She said that a rising inmate population had made the new building necessary. During her presentation, she said the current jail was opened in 2001 with 380 beds along with an existing tower that held 120 inmates. Within four years, the jail was at maximum capacity, and despite several efforts to renovate the building, the jail population was still rising.
“In 2012, 560 was our average jail population, and in 2021, we were at 950 for our average population,” she said.

Population expected to continue to rise
Dodson also said a study by Bill Garnos, a nationally recognized jail consultant, showed that the inmate population would continue to rise.
“Garnos … came in and did a study, and this was his projections over a 20-year-period, and you can see that in 2037, he projected that we (would need) 2,008 beds,” she said.
During her presentation, Dodson also described what the facility would look like inside. The new building, she said, would be a 1,242-bed facility, with two- and four-inmate housing units. Each unit, she said, will be equipped with a rec yard, a dayroom, a program room, an attorney-client visitation room, phones and tablets.

New jail built to resemble other area buildings, will be located further away from most public schools
Dodson also said that in building the new jail, the county took into consideration the wishes of the surrounding business owners.
“Whenever we were talking about purchasing the land and talking to the other businesses,” she said, “they asked that it fit in with everything in the surrounding area and not look like a jail, so we tried to be frugal with the taxpayers’ money and make it look as nice as possible within our budget.”
The new jail is located at Highway EE and Haseltine, just west of Springfield. Dodson said the new location would alleviate one concern that the original jail posed: its proximity to area schools. The current jail, she said, is within two miles of 30 schools, five of which are within a half-mile of the building. The new jail, however, will be two miles of only three schools, and the closest one would be located a half-mile away.

Employment opportunities at the jail
Also discussed during the conference was employment opportunities at the jail for detention officers. Arnott said there are 62 vacancies in the detention department that need to be filled. Detention officers have a starting salary of $18.84 per hour and receive benefits including life, medical and dental insurance, paid holidays, retirement and paid vacation, among other benefits. Arnott mentioned that anyone who is at least 18 years of age and holds a high school diploma could apply to be a detention officer and make about “$50,000 per year right out of high school.”
After the conference, Arnott and some of the other officers in attendance spoke individually with audience members who had further questions.