It’s been 30 years since Elmore County has built a jail.
It was built to house 242 inmates in 1995, when the population of Elmore County was 55,000. Elmore County Sheriff Bill Franklin was in the same role then when his department moved just over 100 inmates from the old jail to the new jail overnight.
“I never thought we would fill the new jail,” Franklin said.
Growth happened and now the county’s population is well over 90,000. Bookings in 1995 were just 775 and now more than 5,500 per year.
The jail now has an average population of more than 300 and housing 350 inmates is not unusual.
Franklin said the fees and assessments in the Enhance Elmore plan are needed to construct a new jail, with an estimated cost of nearly $82 million. Estimates are over $100 million to renovate the old jail.
“When we looked into it, you have to upgrade everything to current codes,” Elmore County chief operations officer Richie Beyer said. “It ends up being about one and half times the cost of building new.”
The needs for a new jail became apparent during the COVID-19 pandemic when the medical area of the current jail proved to be inadequate. About the size of a small office, there was no space for current staff to move, much less quarantine a sick inmate.
The current jail offers little space to separate inmates for security reasons. Because of the increased population it is not uncommon for an inmate charged with violent crime to be housed with a low-level drug offender. The need is even greater on the female side as the current jail was never designed or constructed with the higher female population in mind.
Tentatively, the new jail would be built for a population of 500 inmates with the ability to easily add another pod if necessary, bringing the total occupancy to 600. All of this while making the movement of inmates from the jail to court safe and secure for everyone.
A new office for the sheriff’s office and circuit clerk are needed as well at an estimated cost of $14.2 million.
“They are on top of each other,” Elmore County Commission chair Bart Mercer said.
The current circuit clerk offices would be renovated to allow space for two new judges. The remainder of the building would be refreshed as well at an estimated cost of $6.4 million.
Franklin calls the need for a new jail the “elephant in the room.”
“There is no way to hide it or deny it,” Franklin said. “There's nothing sexy about a jail. Most of this that's being accumulated, it's going to have to pay for that jail.”
Franklin has been sheriff since 1991. His father, mother and grandfather were all involved in law enforcement. Franklin’s son is currently serving in the Elmore County Sheriff's Office.
Franklin saw how the federal government pretty much dictated the construction and move to the current jail. It started with a visit from the fire marshall because of the occupancy level. He fears that the federal government is not too far away on the issue. The sheriff notes the department is frequently sued over the jail and those suits will become more frequent as the jail population increases.
“We don’t need the feds telling us how to build a jail,” Franklin said. “They come in and we are left with the bill.”
Franklin said if the funding from Enhance Elmore doesn’t happen, drastic cuts are highly possible in the Elmore County Sheriff’s Office.
“We can ride golf carts and motorcycles instead of patrol cars,” Franklin said. “I can cut the number of deputies in half.”
