County eyes jail expansion, project will add 10,000 square feet

BENTONVILLE -- Benton County has hired an architect to design a pair of short-term expansion projects while also doing a feasibility study on a larger expansion at the County Jail.

County Judge Bob Clinard has an agreement with Treanor Architects, a company with offices in several states but based in Kansas City, Mo., to do design work on the initial expansion projects and the feasibility study. The county will pay Treanor $94,250.

The initial estimated cost of the two projects is about $1.8 million, Clinard said. Design work is expected to take about four months and construction work, if approved, will take another seven months, he said.

Capt. Jeremy Guyll, who oversees the jail operation for the Benton County Sheriff's Office, said the two initial expansions are needed now. The larger of the two projects will add about 10,000 square feet onto the jail's F pod for offices, a gymnasium and fitness center, training facilities and other administrative functions. That will allow the Sheriff's Office to move out of areas originally built to house inmates, freeing up room for another 32 misdemeanor prisoners.

The county made room for a small number of misdemeanor prisoners earlier this year by shifting some of the same administrative and training functions. A staff break room and a storage room were utilized for misdemeanor inmates in that project.

The training and fitness areas are particularly important, Guyll said. The Sheriff's Office logged more than 52,000 training hours last year, he said.

"The state mandates that we do a certain number of training hours every year," he said. "We have to have room for the equipment, a place to train on defensive tactics and do other training. We gave that space up to open up those other areas for misdemeanors so the judges would have a place to send their seven-day and 10-day commits."

The second part of the short-term expansion will provide secure holding cells for women prisoners, Guyll said. The jail is holding about 100 women prisoners in H pod in barracks-style areas, some of which utilize three tiers of bunks and temporary beds on the floor. Women prisoners who have to be separated for any reason are now kept in cells in the booking area, Guyll said. The expansion of H pod will give the county at least six security cells that could hold up to 12 inmates, he said.

State and federal laws require inmates be separated according to a number of criteria. Women inmates must be kept separate from men. Sex offenders must also be separated. Misdemeanor offenders must be held separately, and felons must be separated according to their pre-trial or post-trial status. Benton County typically holds about 200 inmates waiting for space in state prisons. Inmates who present disciplinary or security problems further complicate the process, Guyll said.

The feasibility study will look at current jail space and projected future needs, Clinard said. News that the state may add beds for inmates in state prisons is welcome, but the prospect of relief for Benton County is uncertain, he said.

"By the time we got it built we could use it because it doesn't look like the state is going to do enough," Clinard said. "We've got 3,000 state prisoners in county jails in Arkansas. Benton County has got 200 state prisoners. The state is talking about adding 200 beds, so the relief I'm seeing is nothing compared to what we need."

Funding for a major jail expansion would be difficult, according to some of the county's justices of the peace. With the $1.8 million price tag for the initial expansion projects added to the county's proposed new courts building, the expected cost of keeping War Eagle Bridge open and the ongoing cost of rural ambulance service, the demands on the county's finances are growing.

Kurt Moore, justice of the peace for District 13, wants to wait and see what the state may do before taking on a major jail addition.

"I would like to see some help from the state, even though I don't think that's forthcoming," Moore said. "The first two projects should take care of us in the short term. Then we'll have to wait and see."

Tom Allen, justice of the peace for District 4 and chairman of the county's Finance Committee, agreed the county should wait to see what the state does and how it affects the county before embarking on a major jail expansion.

"I think we need to keep an eye on that," he said. "We need to see if the prison population is going to be the same. Is it going to be better or is it going to be worse?"

General News on 08/05/2015