Tripling capacity to 300 inmates alarms some

By DAVE HAMRICK
Staff Writer

Opposition to Fayette County's plans for a $60 million jail and judicial complex is beginning to surface.

“I just think that that area could be used in a much more useful way for the community,” said Denise Fair, a resident who opposes plans to build the complex on 62 acres between Lee Street and Jimmie Mayfield Boulevard in Fayetteville.

The county is currently studying funding options for adding onto the current jail to increase its capacity from around 85 to about 300 prisoners, and to build a new court facility and sheriff's office. The plan includes space for future expansion of the jail as well, and for a new county administration building a decade or so down the road.

The expansion also includes space to divide “maximum security” prisoners from those accused of lesser crimes. Currently, the only way to do that is to keep the serious criminals in cells and house lesser offenders in common areas.

“We're trying to rejuvenate life downtown,” said Fair. “The people that they're going to bring into the community will not help that.”

Fair said she and other opponents are requesting time on the County Commission agenda, either Sept. 9 or Sept. 23 to address their concerns.

Expanding the county jail not only will bring more prisoners into the downtown area, but also more family members, said Fair, adding that she fears a general deterioration of the downtown area.

“I've talked to [downtown area residents] who are very upset about it,” she added.

She also is upset about the possible loss of the Dorsey house, a historic home on Long Street that has been purchased, along with four others, to provide more room for the jail expansion and new courthouse.

Historical groups have asked the county to consider having gthe house moved and preserved rather than tearing it down, but Fair said that's not good enough. “If you move it, it will lose much of its historical value,” she said.

Fair said she believes people are just beginning to learn about the jail plans, and that as they do opposition will mount.

Part of the newly exanded jail, when it is completed, will be a maximum security facility that will hold prisoners accused of violent crimes while they await trial, and for convicted felons awaiting transport to state prisons.

As those facts begin to sink in, people will be angry, Fair predicted. “They just look at that jail and they just think it's a jail for speeders and drunk drivers,” she said.

She and other opponents will be pushing county officials to find a new site somewhere far away from the center of Fayetteville, she added.

That's not likely, said county Commissioner Greg Dunn, a member of the commission's committee that is planning the details of the jail project.

“We have to have our courthouse in the county seat,” he said, “and it makes sense to colocate the jail with the courthouse.

“I can understand that nobody wants a jail near them, but it's there already,” he added.

Dunn said he is concerned that some opponents of the jail project may have the false impression that a state prison is planned. “It's not a state prison,” he said. “There's a percentage of state prisoners who are there while they're awaiting transport or awaiting trial, but they're not brought here from somewhere else... they're just people who are in trouble in this county.”

Sheriff's Maj. Robert Glaze, director of the jail, confirmed that the facility houses numerous state prisoners awaiting transport, but said the stay for such prisoners is usually brief. The state must pay a per diem rate for prisoners awaiting transport longer than 15 days. “You can bet they're going to move them as soon as there's an opportunity to get them out of here,” he said.

State prisoners normally make up less than 10 percent of the jail's population, he said. The rest are convicted of local county or city law violations, which carry a maximum sentence of 12 months. If a person receives two consecutive 12-month sentences, he or she could stay as long as two years, he said, but the average stay is 13 days or less.

The daily population of Fayette's jail is currently more than double its designed capacity, and failure to increase the size of the jail will result in the county being forced by the federal government to build a new jail, or federal courts will order the release of large numbers of prisoners, Dunn said.

“I am sympathetic to [opponents], but there's not much we can do now except build the safest jail that we can,” he said.

As for Fair's contention that the jail will detract from downtown revitalization efforts, Dunn said county officials are working to make the complex as aesthetically pleasing as possible, including establishing space for buffers and saving as many trees as possible.

“We're not going to have something ugly looking out on the street,” he said.

Fair also expressed concern for the safety of children in several nearby schools if prisoners should escape. “There are three elementary schools close by,” she said.

But Dunn said Fayette County's Sheriff's Department has never had an escape from its jail, and the new jail will have increased security. “The jail has been there all along,” he said. “I guess people have just now discovered that it's there.”

Dunn said he is expecting more opposition, but moving the proposed jail to a different site won't change that. “Then the residents on that side of the county wouldn't like it very much,” he said.