County looks at juvenile jail options

TEXARKANA — The Miller County Quorum Court is discussing whether to continue funding a county juvenile lockup or find another use for the building.

Justice of the Peace Ernest Pender said last week the city helped pay for the Lantz Lurry Juvenile Detention Center, at least as far as into the late 1990s, but he’d been notified it didn’t have the money to resume payments.

“We are really going to have to take a hard look at our finances and look at perhaps putting the building to other use,” Pender said. “It’s basically a solid building, but it has started to run down on the inside in recent years.”

Justice of the Peace John Haltom and others said the center has been able to hold out-of-state juvenile offenders in recent years, but the county wasn’t able to continue that this year mostly because of covid-19.

The center is holding six juvenile offenders. It’s able to hold up to 14 and has held as many as 32 when it was new in 1995. The youth jail has 22 employees and costs the county about $1.2 million to operate annually.

Pender and other Quorum Court members said the building could be used to house the Office of Emergency Services, as well as serve as a sub-office for the county coroner.

“We don’t want to abandon the building. We are looking at putting it to alternate use if we can,” Pender said.

However, Justice of the Peace Jimmy Cowart said it will take time and careful thought before deciding on the building’s future use, adding that it would be a mistake to shut down the center.

“I don’t want us to just rush into making any decision just yet,” he said.