Report: Monroe County should build new jail with 450-500 beds, not renovate current one
Monroe County should build a new jail with 450 to 500 beds, according to a report prepared by RQAW Corporation, out of Fishers, Indiana.
The report recommends against renovating the existing facility at 7th Street and College Avenue, which has a total of 287 beds.
The estimated hard cost of a new facility, according to RQAW, is around $76 million, with additional costs like design and construction contingencies, and fixtures and furnishings, bringing the total cost to around $99 million. That’s not an estimate for a “co-located” justice center that would include space for all the courts, prosecutor, public defender, probation, and other support services.
The hard construction cost of a fully co-located new facility is pegged at around $142-152 million by DLZ, which is the county’s consultant for master planning and designing a new jail facility. That’s based on $70-75 million for a justice center and $72-77 million for the jail and sheriff’s office.
The needed capacity of 450-500 beds was calculated based on the number of jail beds per thousand residents in six other counties: Hendricks, Porter, Johnson, Madison, Clark, and LaPorte. The average figure for the six counties is 3.66 jail beds per thousand residents. The corresponding number of beds for Monroe County, with its population of 140,065, would be 513 [140,065/1000*3.66]
The report from RQAW was presented to Monroe County commissioners on Monday evening, by a team of four: Sanjay Patel, Cole Walters, Adam Mattingly, and Kevin Meyer.
It was in late October 2023, when county commissioners approved the $40,000 study, which is required under Indiana state law, before a new jail can be constructed or reconstructed. Also required under state law is a public hearing on the study’s results.
Monday’s presentation counted as the required public hearing, but no members of the rank-and-file public offered any comment.
County councilor Geoff McKim asked why the estimated “total staffing cost” of $7,060,095 in one table did not match the cost for “salaries,” which was $7,210,095 as indicated in a table on the following page.
Presenters from RQAW Corporation responded to McKim by saying that the difference could stem from overtime benefits, indicating that the number would be double-checked before the report is finalized.
Monroe County sheriff Ruben Marté was keen to establish that even though the 450-bed figure is one that he supports as the correct number for a new jail, the idea is not to fill such a jail to capacity. Marté put it like this: “When we say either 450 to 500 beds, people automatically think…we want to fill those. That is not the case.”
Marté gave the example of the COVID-19 pandemic as a reason to have a bigger facility—in case the inmate population had to be separated.
Marté also touched on the question of a location for the new jail, which is still not decided. He weighed in for a single-story design, saying about the current jail elevator, which is sometimes out of service: “That’s a nightmare for us right now.” He added that it’s important to have a facility that could be spread out.
Marté praised the inclusion of space for programs inside a new jail, which RQAW had calculated into its cost estimates.
County commissioner Lee Jones indicated that the recommendation to build new, as opposed to renovating, was expected: “None of this comes as a big surprise.” Jones added, “Given the amount of money that we’re pouring into our current facility, it does seem like the wisest path forward would be a new facility.”
County commissioner Penny Githens wanted to know why the operational costs for a new facility would be about $2 million more than for the existing facility. The answer from RQAW’s Sanjay Patel was that the increased cost estimate was based on a bigger number of inmates—450 compared to 240.
County commissioner Julie Thomas wrapped up the public hearing by saying that RQAW’s report would be “taken under advisement.” She added, “ I want to thank everybody again for their attention and RQAW for doing such a great job providing us with this important data that we need to move forward.”
Consideration of a replacement facility for Monroe County is driven by the conclusion of two consultants who submitted recommendations to the county almost three years ago. One of the reports concluded that “The jail facility is failing…”
The jail currently operates under a 2009 settlement agreement with the ACLU, which filed a lawsuit over crowded conditions at the jail. The settlement agreement has been extended several times.
The rated capacity of the jail at the time of the settlement agreement, based on Indiana’s County Jail Standards and inspections by the Indiana Department of Correction, was 278, with 248 secure beds. The other 30 beds are for trustees and offenders attending a special program.
Under the terms of the settlement agreement, when the population for the available security beds reaches 244, the jail staff has to contact the circuit court judges and request an order releasing inmates in order to avoid the population exceeding the jail’s capacity.
