NATCHEZ, Miss. – Pods from the private prison near here might be reusable to reduce the costs for building the new public prison that Adams County Sheriff Travis Patten and county supervisors are planning for.
Meeting Monday with the county’s five supervisors, Patten said prison officials at CoreCivic have indicated they would donate cell pods to Adams County. CoreCivic owns the prison in north Adams County that detains immigrants illegally in the United States.
The sheriff also said an expert he’s consulted with is confident the portable prison pods can be reconfigured to use in a new Adams County jail.
“I’m looking forward to seeing how much money this guy says we can save,” said Patten, who noted the advisor is planning to visit Adams County in September.
The sheriff and supervisors on Monday reviewed financial tools for paying to build a jail without raising taxes.
“I know we have to build a jail … without putting a burden on the taxpayer,” said county Supervisor Angela Hutchins.
Adams County’s existing 49-year-old facility is deteriorated, outdated and poorly designed.
County supervisors last month agreed with Patten to commission a study that will examine what kind of facility is needed, how big it should be, the costs of building and maintenance, how to fund it, the types of criminal detainees it would hold, the staffing needed and more.
Kathryn Bryan – who heads the North Carolina-based consulting firm Detention Operations – is administering the study with input from local officials in the law-enforcement and judicial sectors
Financial options for paying to build a jail involve lease-purchase measures and other tools that don’t add to the county’s debt.
Officials with CoreCivic’s Adams County prison on U.S. 84 are currently renegotiating with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency on the contract the detention center has to hold immigrants, said county board attorney Scott Slover.
The prison utilizes a podular design in which cells are clustered around a central area with guards watching over the detainees. This is an alternative to prisons with long corridors sided by cells.
The Adams County jail on State and Wall streets was built in 1975. With it now considered so substandard and outdated, many Adams County inmates are taken to nearby Concordia Parish’s prison.
A 2014 estimate had it costing about $7 million to build a new Adams County jail. County supervisors have requested the Jackson-based construction company that made that estimate to update the building costs.
Land north of Natchez has been donated to the county to build a new jail. Evaluations of the property have been underway for several months, but supervisors have declined to say where it’s located and who donated it.
The board in April also heard a proposal that would have Adams County renting a private jail that would be built here to house local inmates. The county would not be responsible for the new building’s maintenance, according to the plan presented to the board.
The Mississippi Legislature in April enacted a new law specifically for Adams County authorizing the Board of Supervisors to enter into a lease-purchase agreement for a new jail if it decided to follow that course.
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