I'll be in the county jail on Saturday

Rick

Moderator
Staff member
The county just spent 3.5 million on an extension to the county jail and it's now finished, the sheriff is having an open house on Saturday so the public can see where their money went. They have had a camera showing the build from the beginning, still shots not video and exterior only and I've been watching it. I figured the best time to see the inside of a jail is when all the doors are unlocked. They will even have free food for the visitors. Ok so it's jail food. Give the people a chance to see what our druggies eat every day. Sherriff says it's beans & corn bread.
 

Spindrift

Well-Known Member
Just make sure you get out again, before they lock the doors!

Sounds interesting. Never seen the inside og a jail before, either.
 

Bret4207

At the casting bench in the sky. RIP Bret.
Our county spent, IIRC, $7 mil on our new jail some time back. At the time many of us urged them to build it half again as large as needed and rent the space out to other counties. Nope, "just big enough" was what they did and now, not only are we not renting extra space out to other counties, it turns out it isn't big enough after all and we're the ones paying rent to other counties!
 

Intheshop

Banned
I'd be wanting to learn about their hardware specific to,built in redundancy(power down). Locks,door and check point geographic,and vent system backups.

Purely from a self serving,how can I incorporate it into our place?

Wonder what food they have too?
 

Gary

SE Kansas
Our County (approx 1500 pop.) just finished a new Jail, Sheriff's office, ect. that cost over 1.5 million more that projected and voted on by county residents. It's a Albatross. Our County had 3 employees and dispatch personnel for a total of 6; now we have 17 employees in the department AND NO increase in crime or incarceration rate. Money well spent, ha!!
 

Ian

Notorious member
Our county spent, IIRC, $7 mil on our new jail some time back. At the time many of us urged them to build it half again as large as needed and rent the space out to other counties. Nope, "just big enough" was what they did and now, not only are we not renting extra space out to other counties, it turns out it isn't big enough after all and we're the ones paying rent to other counties!

We paid for a nice new jail about 15 years ago. It's plenty big and works well, and was intended to have extra capacity for overflow from nearby counties more rural and under-funded/under "facilitated" than us. Problem is that a lot of what we DO get to "host" from other counties are their worst problem subjects. A frequent occurrence is a pregnant female who can't post bail, awaiting trial or hearing dates that are obviously going to be some time after she gives birth. Guess who gets to pay the hospital and doctor bills? There are some loopholes in the space-renting policy and medical expenses is one of them. These things really strain our SO budget, it's a mess. I don't really like our sheriff for philosophical reasons but he has a perpetual, big, stinking political and budget mess to deal with and actually does quite a good job managing the "business" side of his job.
 

Rick

Moderator
Staff member
Our county jail had a capacity of 100 beds, with the new extension it will be 165 beds. County population is 41,000 and the jail averages between 90 and 120 inmates. Those numbers include housing inmates from other counties and even the state prison system houses overflow there. The voters here approved a 1% temporary sales tax increase that lasted for 6 months, that paid for the jail in full. According to the county the build was completed on schedule and not a dime over budget. In about a week all of the inmates currently in the jail will be moved to the new section and a 2 month remodel of the old jail will start that includes plumbing and electrical upgrades. The remodel is also included in the original temporary tax increase and so is paid for. So all in all the jail extension isn't a bad thing, there's money to be made from other counties and the state and after all our druggies do deserve a nice place to stay. :rolleyes:
 
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Ian

Notorious member
Sounds like you have some intelligent county planners and quality construction contractors there Rick, I'm impressed.
 

smokeywolf

Well-Known Member
During my comparatively brief time in law enforcement, I saw 3 or 4 different jails. They're not cheerful places. Having just escaped a possibly even worse form of restraint and punishment called California, I think I'll stay here at the homestead and keep plugging away at emptying boxes, organizing and planning the reloading room and machine shop; projects I've been looking forward to for the better part of 10 years.

Maybe Rick would like to stop by here after his tour of the "Green Bar Hotel" or "Grey Bar Hotel" or whatever color they decided to paint or powder coat the bars. If he's full from the free jail food he can stay for dinner.
 

popper

Well-Known Member
Hotel Transylvania for the bad guys. Must use left over Navy sea foam green paint. Most small city jails are nothing but holding cells/drunk tank until transfer to county or state/Fed. Years ago Bro was on a contract forming precast cell 'cubes', holes for plumbing on one side, opening for door on the other. Haul to site and drop in place. Really old ones were mostly riveted flat bar cells built inside a room. Old ones in Tx were more like dormitory, spring bunks and all. Our city jail was remodeled a few years back, reduced in size as really not used much. She has a G.S. friend who's dad was jailer/sheriff. Friend call a few years back, I could tell by the conversation who it was and yelled -"you still pegging the inmates with Oreos?". Small towns must be fun for kids.
 
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Rick

Moderator
Staff member
I've actually seen the inside of many jails. :eek: I spent 34 years in motion picture/TV and jails are not an uncommon filming location. Kind of a depressing place to spend the day at work but unlike the residents I went home at night. :)
 

CZ93X62

Official forum enigma
No "KIND OF" about it--jails are depressing places to work in or to live within. I did 21 months of corrections duty at the start of my career, and that was more than enough to suit me. Deputies are now doing between 3 and 6 years in the jail prior to re-assignment to patrol billets, and as you might expect a lot of them opt out and get hired by city agencies that don't have jails. This tendency has been a feature of my old shop since I hired on in 1977.

And THAT is a genuine shame. Working in a custody environment for a couple years made me a MUCH BETTER field deputy. You learn who the crooks are, and if you treat them half-decently and with respect those 'loaves you cast upon the waters' will return ten-fold in good outcomes. I very seldom had to "go physical" with arrestees--they knew that I knew who and what they were and are, so the BS level was naturally reduced to a minimum.

21 months out of almost 28 years wasn't a huge percentage of my time, but it was sufficient for me. My little sister (the one with the brains) spent close to half of her almost 30 years at the same agency working corrections as deputy, sergeant, and lieutenant. She has a skill set for admin work that I utterly lack entirely, and at the same time she was a very capable field troop that her peers and subordinates LOVED. Some folks have a "knack" for "working inside"--Kristy definitely does.

Our old county is in the final phases of building a $330 million East County jail facility to manage the various and sundry custody complications of a county just east of the Los Angeles megacity monster. As might be expected, the County is having some trouble finding people to staff the place. Their latest cost-saving and personnel-management delusion is to unload at least 3 of its larger contract cities and force them to staff their own police departments from the ground up. The positions disposed of in this fashion would be transferred to the East County facility--all 200+ of them. Oh, right--200 people are going to uproot their families and move 100+ miles to keep their jobs--at a time when other nearby agencies are offering hiring bonuses of up to $10K for qualified/certified peace officers--and paying higher salaries. That must be some REAL GOOD DOPE they are using. And let's also not forget--Temecula, Moreno Valley, and Palm Desert will be needing experienced personnel also--WHO ARE ALREADY IN PLACE AND HAPPY TO STAY. BRILLIANT! This will not end well.

As for jail food--beans and cornbread is pretty good, AFAIC. So was the chow at my jail site (Indio)--inmates housed for long-term trials gained significant weight during their lodgement, as did a few of the deputies. I never saw or heard of a chow riot at Indio Jail during the time I worked there--the free cook said "Inmates won't throw good food at staff". He was correct.
 
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Rick

Moderator
Staff member
Ah yes, LA county, now there is a jail system. Their newest ultra modern high tech facility downtown LA is dubbed the twin towers. Forget how many 100's of millions to build it but when completed the Sheriff wanted additional county funds to operate it. The county refused and the Sheriff refused to open it. It sat completely empty for over a year before the county caved in. During that year several film companies took advantage of a modern jail completely void of any prisoners and quite a bit of filming was done there. I was there on location a few different times. Not yet being used to house prisoners every interior door was open and I freely roamed the millions of square feet of floor space checking it out. A real eye opener at least for me was the kitchen where the inmates do the cooking. So there I am looking at this huge stainless steel sink with by far the biggest garbage disposal I have ever seen. Right next to that sink was a . . . . . Are ya ready? A bandsaw! Pretty shocking, all I could think was when ya can't find that prisoner ya might want to check out the sewer system. :eek: Oh well, what do I know about running the largest prison system in the country.
 

JWFilips

Well-Known Member
Eat a lot .....it is free food!
Once you leave you will have to pay for your food!
But the inmates will be eating for free!.....& you will also be "paying for that!"
 

462

California's Central Coast Amid The Insanity
JW,
Why is it that I think the country's inmates eat better than our military?
 

RicinYakima

High Steppes of Eastern Washington
Other than in Vietnam Nam, Army chow was good Southern cooking. Never liked grits, but everything else was okay. I had no complains about stateside dinners and suppers, nor the cooks that made the chow.
 

462

California's Central Coast Amid The Insanity
In Viet Nam, the Air Force chow hall never served steak, but the base's 101st Airborne's artillery detachment enjoyed it quite often. My shop's scrounger traded the 101st our hotdogs (tube steaks) for their steaks, and we had a barbeque. Only time in that year I ate steak. Because the 6 am-to-6 pm shift often missed lunch -- aircraft missions didn't adhere to any time schedule, especially the alert pad scrambles -- he scrounged C-rations to hold us over till dinner. At least their smokes were enjoyable.
 

Rick

Moderator
Staff member
Stateside in the Corps the food left a good deal to be desired. Stateside Navy ate quite well judging by the couple of Navy mess halls I ate in.
 

RicinYakima

High Steppes of Eastern Washington
I was there in 1969 when the Command Sargent Major of the MACV was selling, with his buddies, food off the supply ships on the black market. It had been going on for years, but he got caught holding the bag. Four years of hard labor in Leavenworth and dishonorable discharge. We got rice from the Philippines, and canned goods from the Korean War at base camp. In the field we got Korean War C-rations and the Chesterfields were so dry we gave them to they guys that smoked pipes.

I had one bar-b-que where I got to eat fresh meat. My Engineer R&I platoon had been doing helicopter insertions and mapping across the jungle for a road. Sneekie Peteie stuff, just six to eight of us. This went on for a month or so. After the last mission, everyone who had been involved got a steak and free beer. The picture below is the end result of our survey when they blazed the road in April, 1970.
welcome-to-cambodia-31st-engineers-j-lough.jpg
 

smokeywolf

Well-Known Member
Mom was a southern girl. We ate grits at least every 4 to 6 weeks. They were OK but not great. Mom was not much of a cook. Only thing she cooked that was truly memorable was pizza, fresh ham, lentil soup, barley soup and her potato salad, tuna salad and deviled eggs were quite good.
I make good grits. Other thing with grits is, they really need to be served with spicy shrimp or crawdads.