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Bite the bullet.
It’s the position our county commissioners are in when it comes to construction of a new detention center – or in terms us older folk understand – a new jail.
If you think those commissioners have an easy job, attend or listen to their budget workshops. Listen as department heads explain the needs, and how much money it takes to meet those needs. It can make your head spin.
Sure, there’s plenty of waste in government. Most of us have seen that in private business, as well. Goverments – and individuals for that matter – should always be on the lookout for unneeded expenditures.
Those needs are real. Commissioners are tasked with meeting them the best they can while trying not to burden residents with higher taxes. It ain’t easy.
But the time to build a new detention center is here. Not because the state says we have to, but because it’s the right thing to do. A high price is no reason to delay this project any further. The price ain’t going down. It’s been reviewed and cut and reviewed and cut more times than most can remember.
Imagine that, prices aren’t decreasing. That delay a few years ago was just putting off the inevitable. Well, the inevitable is here.
Yes, there are bad people housed at the Davie Detention Center. Sheriff J.D. Hartman explained that well to commissioners, giving one example of a woman who had stripped off all her clothes and began throwing urine and feces at guards, even covering her own body with the excrement.
In a new jail, the guards wouldn’t be subjected to such behavior. Neither would her fellow inmates.
Also, it’s a jail – not a prison.
Most of the people housed in the Davie Detention Center are awaiting trial. Just because you are arrested doesn’t mean you’re guilty, at least not according to the law. And those who can’t make bail while awaiting trial are usually those with lower incomes, with mental illness and no or poor support systems.
Let’s not forget about those detention officers who have to work in these same, sometimes unsafe conditions. They deserve better even more than those charged with crimes. There have been worker’s compensation claims; more lawsuits can only be expected if something isn’t done.
And while it’s the county commission’s job to pay for a new jail, it’s not entirely their decision on when to do that or why it has to be done. As with the courthouse, judges and other state inspectors can require improvements.
It’s time to bite the bullet.
– Mike Barnhardt