Press Release from Washington Parish Sheriff Jason Smith
Washington Parish needs a new jail. That is not a recent conclusion — it is one that has been documented, deferred, and handed from one administration to the next for longer than it should have been. This past year, that changed. We took concrete steps toward replacing the current facility with one built to meet the demands of modern correctional operations, and those steps are worth explaining.
The current jail was not designed for what it is being asked to do. Age, layout, and infrastructure limitations create daily operational challenges for the deputies and staff who work there, and they create compliance pressures that are not going away. Maintaining a facility past its useful life is not a savings — it is a cost that compounds quietly, in repairs, in liability, in the toll it takes on the people who report for work there every day. The question has never been whether to replace it. The question has been when, and how.
This year produced real answers to both.
In December last year, the Sheriff acquired property along Highway 10, near the Veterans Memorial Park and the parish Emergency Operations Center (EOC). The location is a deliberate choice. Proximity to the EOC supports coordinated response during major incidents, and the site in the center of the parish provides the access and expansion capacity a facility of this scale requires. Securing that land was a necessary first step, and it is done.
Funding has been the historic obstacle to this project, and this year brought meaningful movement on that front. The State of Louisiana dedicated $27 million toward construction of the new facility. Those funds are currently designated as priority 5 appropriations, which means they are not available for expenditure this year. The path forward is straightforward: we will either use that commitment to bond the construction of the project or work to move the appropriation into priority 1 status next year. Either way, the money is identified and the state's commitment is on record.
What is available now — and already at work — is $500,000 in cash provided to begin the design process. Grace Designs will be the project's architectural firm, and work with that team begins within the next month. Design is where intention becomes a building and starting that process is the most consequential near-term step this project can take.
The new facility will address what the current one cannot: adequate separation of inmate populations, modern medical and mental health capacity, improved sight lines and staffing ratios, and infrastructure built to current code. A modern jail also means better working conditions for the people who staff it every day.
Washington Parish is not a wealthy parish. Large capital projects do not come easily here. What has been accomplished this year — the property, the state funding, the design contract — represents real and sustained effort. There is more work ahead, and it will take time. But the foundation is in place, and this administration intends to see it through.
The people of Washington Parish deserve a jail that works. We will build one.
No comments:
Post a Comment