GREENFIELD — After years of waiting, Hancock County Sheriff Brad Burkhart is getting closer to his big move.
The large, blocky building located off U.S. 40 that will house the county’s new jail is edging closer to completion, and it’s a facility that will not only solve the sheriff department’s space issues but will give the county room to introduce new programs and try different approaches in rehabilitating lawbreakers.
The building, on the county farm east of Greenfield, is a clear contrast with the current jail in downtown Greenfield. Often cramped, without adequate room for inmates and without much storage or office space, the structure, built in 1988, has been outgrown.
It will be some time before the new jail, being built at a cost of about $43 million, is open for business. It is on track to be completed in November or December, and approximately 80 workers from contractor RQAW are on site each day. However, much of the exterior work is complete, and it’s becoming clear what the finished building will look like.
County officials who visited the building for a tour on Monday, April 5, said they were pleased with the progress.
“It looks a lot different than the last time I was here,” county council member Keely Butrum said.
The new jail, which will be able to house 400 inmates, has been a long work in progress for Burkhart. Throughout the design process, Burkhart had a lot of input on what he wanted the facility to look like in order to best suit the needs of his staff. Burkhart said he toured other jails and thinks this facility combines the best features of many of them.
“To be able to take it from a set of drawings to actually seeing it, it feels good to see that,” he said.
Attached to the jail is the sheriff’s administration building, which has its own entrance. Visitors can enter here if they have business with the sheriff’s department, and this is also where interviews with victims and suspects will be conducted. The administration building contains offices and conference rooms for the sheriff’s department, three interview rooms, and evidence storage space. There’s also an evidence lab and an armory.
The square footage of the buildings totals 107,200 for jail space and 24,500 for administration space, both a major increase over the space at the current facility.
The jail has a separate entrance, so visitors will not have to walk through the administrative space to conduct visits with the jail. Upon being buzzed into the jail building through secure doors, visitors will enter a space where they can conduct visits either virtually or in person. Virtual visit stations may eventually be phased out, Burkhart said, but they are being built in since COVID-19 social distancing is still a concern.
Offices for jail staff are also located toward the front of the building, where they are separated from the rest of the jail by two sets of secure doors. The building has conference rooms for jail and probation officers, along with a dedicated room where attorneys can meet with their clients.
Near this area, rooms are set aside as spaces where judges could conduct on-site hearings. Burkhart is hoping county judges will agree to conduct some proceedings there to cut down on inmate transportation. (The new jail is about two miles from the courthouse.)
That’s not the only feature the new jail boasts that’s lacking at the current facility.
“If you’ve been in our jail currently, we don’t have a medical wing whatsoever,” Burkhart said.
Now, this building will have space for a doctor’s and nurse’s office as well as several examination rooms.
An intake area of the building contains isolation cells and “drunk tanks” where recently arrested people can be placed. Beyond that, the jail building is divided up into three main blocks, each of which divides into smaller units. The “A” and “B” blocks will house inmates in two- and four-person cells, while the “C” block does not have cells; bunks are located in open space.
The more open C block will be used by the jail as a space focused on rehabilitation and recovery, where inmates can participate in drug recovery programs, take classes and participate in other group activities focused on helping them make life changes.
Isolation cells and padded cells are distributed throughout the jail so that jailers don’t have to traverse the entire building if someone needs to be isolated, Burkhart said. The three blocks are each intended to be largely self-sufficient.
“Every area’s kind of self-isolated to have its own things, so you’re not having to go from one to the other,” Burkhart said.
The jail has plenty of space for cooking, laundry and storage, as well as a space for a 10-bunk pod that would be occupied by inmate workers. It also has room to grow. Part of the building is currently a “shell” that could be built out to house an additional 116 inmates in the future. Burkhart said the sheriff’s department may negotiate with federal law enforcement agencies to house some of their prisoners for a period of time, in exchange for an agency agreeing to finance the completed construction of that part of the building.
Outside, there is also plenty of empty acreage available on the campus. With that space, Burkhart hopes to set aside land for gardening and farming that could be used as part of rehabilitation programs.
“Those are things we’re not used to, have never done, and so that’s going to be a learning process down the road on how to make that happen,” he said. “…Who knows what it could be down the road, though? We really don’t. It’s really kind of endless, what you could probably do out here. You’ve got plenty of space.”