Sheriff: Closing juvenile jail ‘work in progress’
Documents and emails The Sentinel-Record acquired through a public records request suggest the Garland County Sheriff’s Department has decided to close the juvenile detention center, but Sheriff Mike McCormick said Tuesday the department is still weighing its options.
“You would be wrong to assume any decision to close the facility has been made,” he said in an email. “This is very much a work in progress. The documents you have questions about are working drafts and not final on any level. As I have said before, we are exploring several options which includes keeping the facility open, downsizing and contracting with other facilities to house Garland County juveniles.
“It is clearly not feasible to operate the center as we are doing now. This task has taken multiple hours of staff time. The options and recommendations will be presented to the quorum court at the appropriate time.”
A memo on department letterhead and dated for a Sept. 10 release said the juvenile jail will no longer be housing residents. The department said the memo was an uncirculated draft when the newspaper asked Monday if the facility was still operating.
“The juvenile detention center is fully operational and receiving juvenile offenders at this time,” Sgt. John Schroeder, the department’s training and media relations coordinator, said in an email response.
A Sept. 12 email Chief Deputy of Corrections Steven Elrod, who oversees the adult and juvenile jails, sent a subordinate said all residents of the juvenile facility need to be released or relocated by Nov. 15, with up to six selected for placement in the Jack Jones Juvenile Detention Center in Jefferson County.
Andrew Pennington, the department’s finance manager for detention operations, inquired with Jefferson and Yell counties about housing Garland County juveniles, according to emails from August and earlier this month. Jefferson County quoted a $164,250 annual cost for reserving six beds for Garland County. Paying for the full year in advance would reduce the price to $154,250, which includes picking up juveniles subsequent to arrest.
Garland County would be responsible for transportation to and from
court and picking up juveniles after they are released.
Emails showed shuttering the juvenile jail was being considered as early as August, shortly after the newspaper reported close to $1 million a year is budgeted from the county general fund to house a daily population that has averaged 11 juveniles since January. Population reports showed the 22-bed facility housed as few as five juveniles a day during that time.
The department said in a news release issued last week that it and other juvenile justice stakeholders began considering more cost-effective options for juvenile detention six months ago. Pennington projected a $1,005,717 budget for the juvenile jail in 2020, according to an email.
A schedule and plan for transferring resources from the juvenile to adult jail Elrod sent McCormick Sept. 12 called for a contract with Jefferson County and notifying vendors of a termination/amendment of services as of Nov. 1 for the juvenile jail to be completed by this week.
The plan said transferring juvenile detention’s 15 budgeted positions to the adult facility and opening two housing units would allow the adult jail to realize its physical capacity of about 500 inmates. The department has said staffing and budget limitations impose booking restrictions when male and female populations reach 252 and 58, respectively.
The restrictions have been in place for the women’s pod since February and for men since earlier this month and for 10 days in July. As of Monday, the jail reported 291 men and 62 women in custody, not including more than 20 inmates housed as part of a work release program for Arkansas Department of Correction inmates.
Emails from last month indicated the department also considered converting Unit H in the adult facility into a juvenile housing area. Officials said the conversion would have to allow for complete segregation of adults and juveniles to comply with the state’s juvenile jail standards.
Funding for the adult and juvenile jails will be considered when the quorum court holds 2020 budget sessions next month. It’s unclear if general fund savings from the potential outsourcing of juvenile detention would be transferred to the jail fund, which is supported by a 0.375 percent countywide sales tax.
Justices of the peace adopted a 2019 budget of more than $7 million for the adult jail after the county said last year that the jail fund’s recurring revenue could not support an operational expansion. A consultant’s report released in March recommended putting the roughly $500,000 a year the adult jail generates from housing state inmates into the jail fund rather than the general fund, where it’s currently allocated.