Officials tour Sumner County Jail
Editor's Note: This reporter had the opportunity to tour the new Sumner County Jail March 26 with Marion County Commissioner Dan Holub and Marion County Sheriff Lee Becker which is a similar floor plan to what Marion County is considering. Following is an accounting of the experience.
Staff reporter
The brick building with few windows is located a couple miles from Wellington and off U.S.-81. As visitors enter the front door of the Sumner County Jail, there is a reception area with office personnel behind glass.
"May I help you?" the receptionist asked as the trio entered a waiting area.
Vending machines with snacks, drinks, and candy are along one wall and a row of cubicles with chairs, telephones, and more glass is along another. Signs are posted on the wall to inform the general public of the rules when visiting a prisoner.
Prisoners and visitors have five minutes. There are no conjugal visits in this detention center, and no smoking, and no privacy.
Within a minute, Sumner County Undersheriff J.D. Osborn, a veteran law enforcement officer, comes from a hallway with a smile and out-stretched hand.
After introductions from Sheriff Lee Becker, commissioner Dan Holub, and me, the official tour begins.
Touring with the group from Marion County is a member of the Sedgwick County Sheriff's Department who is a Wellington resident who wanted a look-see of the month-old facility.
Undersheriff Osborn leads the group to a hallway of offices.
It doesn't take the visitors long to realize that this building is designed for one use and one use only — a jail.
At the end of the first hallway is a patrol room with cubicles for deputies to use to write reports, make telephone calls, and shoot the breeze.
Some doors operate with an identification card, others require a key. Security cameras are located in hallways and some of the offices.
A separate entrance is available for detention officers who park at the rear of the building.
A two-bay sally port, equivalent to an eight-car garage, also is at the rear of the building and has sufficient clearance for buses, ambulances, and other emergency or commercial-type vehicles.
After all, this 123-bed facility houses more than 30 inmates from other counties — on this particular day, 22 from Sedgwick County and 10 from Cowley County.
"All transitions take place in the sally port," Undersheriff Osborn said.
An exercise room for employees, an evidence room that is accessible from the sally port, a locker room for detention workers, employee showers, and gun cleaning room are among the amenities in the new facility.
Down another corridor and between two doors, the group entered a dark circular room with windows and monitors. Two detention officers are at a table, watching various monitors that show activities in hallways, cells, the sally port, and the front entrance.
Cameras monitor the exterior of the building. Eyes are upon all who enter or even come close to this state-of-the-art detention facility.
Why is the room dark? So inmates cannot see if they are being watched. Instead of detention workers going from cell to cell to supervise and observe inmates, they are able to do it with technology. This command center also controls the opening and closing of doors.
Six isolation cells are located closest to the master control area. Some inmates are in isolation for their own protection, others for the protection of others. Two of the cells are for medical isolation if an inmate has a contagious illness or disease.
Directly out of the command center area is the booking desk. No one officer is responsible for manning this area. Each officer uses the desk and equipment when he or she brings in a prisoner. The sally port is located directly off the booking desk. Inside the building from the sally port is an area for pre-booking and to test for DUI.
While this group was viewing the pre-booking area, a Sumner County Sheriff's car pulls into the sally port. A female deputy gets out, walks around to the back passenger door and out comes a young man, maybe 19 or 20 years old, with orange clothing and shackles.
He walks into the booking area where the shackles are removed. Evidently he has made an appearance in court and for whatever reason, is being released.
Undersheriff Osborn pats the boy on his back and says "I'll see you later." Into the showers he goes. Minutes later, the orange suit is gone and the young man looks like anyone else in town.
And the tour continues.
After an arrestee is booked, he/she is placed in a holding cell and waits to be classified.
Classifications determine if the inmate should be with the general population or isolated. The holding cell is sufficient to hold up to eight inmates. The law allows a person to be held for up to four hours before being placed in a cell.
After classification is completed, the inmate goes to a dressing room, removes all clothing, showers, and is given jail-issued undergarments, shirts, pants, socks, and shoes.
Personal clothes are washed, dried, bagged, and stored until the inmate is released or transferred to another facility.
Inmates are issued a laundry bag for soiled clothing, a towel, blanket, sheet, and hygiene packet. Inmates' clothes are laundered only twice a week. The bright orange clothing for each inmate is washed in a laundry bag so the inmate keeps the same clothes the entire time he/she is incarcerated.
Another corridor leads to the kitchen where three meals per day are prepared.
One sweep of the room and visitors see a petite, attractive woman in her 30s instructing three male inmates. She introduces herself to the group and cordially shakes hands with all.
"We're always working on the next meal," she said. While breakfast is being served, workers are preparing lunch. While lunch is being served, workers prepare dinner and so on.
By preparing their own food, the county is able to feed prisoners for $1.23 per meal.
Does she ever fear for her safety being alone with criminals? Not really. The ones who are chosen to assist her are incarcerated for lesser crimes and are trustworthy. Besides, there are cameras
A private company actually operates the kitchen and this woman is an employee of the catering company not the county.
Inmates typically leave jail weighing more than when they come in, said Undersheriff Osborn, because prisoners are fed 3,000 calories per day and there isn't much physical activity.
Another hallway that looks much like the last is where work-release inmates can clock in and out. Separate cells are used for those who leave the jail during the day to work at their jobs and then return each night to continue serving their time. One corridor is for males, the other for females. There are no opportunities for male and female inmates to ever cross paths.
The cells
There are pods that house eight inmates per pod. The floor is concrete, the walls cinder blocks. A high ceiling arches in the middle to allow natural light through a sky light. That is the only indicator these inmates have to determine if it is night or day.
As we walked through a vacant pod, the voices of five people echoed through the stark room, almost to a deafening level.
Open toilets and showers are on one side of the room with four sets of two metal bunk beds on the other. And, there are those cameras that watch every move an inmate makes in every corner of the cell.
If inmates have the cash, cable television with limited programming can be activated.
Two round, metal tables with four swivel stools attached to it are in the middle of the room. This the area where inmates can write letters (with only pencils being provided), play cards, or watch television.
At meal time, plastic covered trays are slipped through a "bean hole" in the door.
"We provide indirect supervision," said Undersheriff Osborn. In other words, no physical or limited verbal contact is made between the inmates and jail personnel.
An activity room with a basketball goal is available for inmates to use on a limited basis — maybe an hour per day. Otherwise, the inmates are in their pods or isolation cells the majority of the time.
Undersheriff Osborn took the group to the second floor observation point. In this area, personnel can visibly see every pod and hallway through one-way glass.
Watching inmates pacing around their cells reminded these visitors of animals in a zoo. This voyeur-type of observation area was uncomfortable for me. It was almost as if the window was a television screen and each window a different station. Occasionally an inmate looked up toward the observation area. Could he see someone or did he just feel like someone was watching him? The hair stood up on the back of my neck.
There are no smoke breaks for inmates at this facility.
"If they come in as smokers, they'll leave as non-smokers," Undersheriff Osborn said.
The facts, comparison
The 123-bed facility is not at capacity — yet. On the day of the tour, there were 79 prisoners — six were females.
On an average, inmates are incarcerated six months to a year.
The former Sumner County Jail was built in 1952 and had 18 beds. There were times, Undersheriff Osborn said, that they had as many as 40 inmates in the cramped area which sounded much like what Sheriff Becker encounters from time to time at the Marion County Jail.
Sumner County voters approved a one-cent special sales tax in 2004. The county collected the tax for nearly a year before construction started in September 2005. Eighteen months later, the project was finished and inmates and personnel were moved to the new facility.
The bond issue was for $8.6 million with $6.8 million for the 123-bed facility. Inflation has made today's estimates for Marion County's 72-bed facility $13 million.
Included in the bond issue were updates to the courthouse that included a third courtroom.
Sumner County projected it would pay off the bond in 2018 but with increased revenue from the sales tax, officials say it will be paid in 2009.
The former jail is utilized with some cells being used as holding cells on court days. Office space in the former jail is used for courthouse security, probation officers, and storage.
The new jail facility is 37,000 square feet. The utilities for the first month was $11,000, which included some use by contractors finishing the construction.
The first draft presented to Marion County was for 72 beds for a total of 63,137 square feet for $13,857,894 which originally included court services and the county attorney.
When the project was reduced to 40 beds and eliminated court services and the attorney's office, the cost estimate was $9,445,855.
Summary
Comments have been made by residents that they don't want to see criminals live in the luxury of a new building. To the observer of the new Sumner County Jail, there are no luxuries other than a place to sleep and three meals a day.
"These facilities are designed to be functional," Undersheriff Osborn said, not comfortable.
At the present time, there are 15 employees who operate the jail 24 hours a day, seven days a week for 79 inmates. When the population increases, so will the number of employees, Undersheriff Osborn said.
Final observation: Even though this jail is a new, state-of-the-art facility, it is impossible to confuse it with a college dormitory or motel. Regardless if it were new or old, it definitely is a jail.
