NATCHEZ, Miss. – The U.S. Justice Department is helping Adams County develop ideas, solutions and alternatives for its problem-plagued jail.
The department’s National Institute of Corrections is sending one or more representatives to meet with county officials on Wednesday, said Sheriff Travis Patten. A community meeting is set for Friday to discuss the NIC’s assessment.
The federal agency’s review will evaluate a variety of issues ranging from the 47-year-old jail’s structural defects to the judicial system that sends inmates to the facility, Patten said.
The county Board of Supervisors on Monday – as it routinely does in recent years – discussed the jail as its conditions worsens to the point that some question whether inmates are being held in inhumane conditions. Supervisors are negotiating to possibly move jail inmates to Concordia Parish’s detention center in Louisiana.
The Justice Department’s NIC will evaluate more than just Adams County’s jail conditions, said county attorney Scott Slover. The review, he said, will also cover various underlying factors related to incarceration, such as the sentences handed down by judges and the long periods inmates can be jailed awaiting trial.
The NIC is a federal agency that provides correctional agencies with a variety of services related to jail and judicial policies, practices and operations. Its mission does include helping design and build new jails.
As it appears Adams County’s current jail can’t be rehabilitated, supervisors have focused on what will replace it, how much a new jail would cost, how it would be funded and where it should be located. Another option that’s been discussed is for the county to not have a jail and contract with another to house inmates. Natchez has contracted with Adams County to jail city inmates.
Built in 1975, the Adams County jail has been considered substandard for several years with various structural problems that county supervisors have been struggling to fund and fix.
The jail’s population varies but has recently been holding about 100 or so detainees.
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