Sheriff Dwayne Carey and other community leaders are starting the planning process for a potential new Boone County jail.
Although the plan for the new jail is still in the early stages, Carey hopes to include around 800 beds. His plan incorporates male and female general housing along with a mental health housing unit, medical infirmary and office spaces.
"Our goal would to be to take care of these mental health offenders, get them the treatment they need, get them the medication they need and be able to divert them to a good program outside that we liaison with, where we know that when they get out, they aren't just going back out on the street with no assistance," Carey said.
Carey says the location for the new jail is uncertain but would likely be on county property. The funding for the jail is also unknown as of now. Traditionally, such large projects go before voters for approval.
Additional staffing and officer positions would be needed if a new jail were built.
Overcrowding
Boone County spends $2.5 million every year on housing inmates outside of the county and Carey believes that number is only going up.
Overcrowding is not a recent issue for the jail. Carey said that in 1998, just 7 years after the jail was built, overcrowding was becoming an issue.
To combat the overcrowding issue, Boone County inmates have been "out-housed" in other counties' jails. In the past, housing inmates in other jails was more cost effective than building a larger jail, Carey said.
Currently, there are 409 Boone County inmates and over half the inmates are housed outside the county. Maximum capacity for the current jail is 245, but many circumstances lower the actual amount of beds available, Carey said. For example, inmates with certain mental health issues may have to be in their own cell.
During COVID, the number of out-of-county inmates broke 100. Now that number sits at around 230 inmates, and costs have been significant, Carey said.
The types of crime have changed drastically since the jail's opening, the jail contains predominantly felony inmates right now, but originally contained lower-level crime inmates. The current Boone County jail does not have room for new commits anymore due to a lack of space.
"These violent offenders, you can't have them out on the street," Carey says. "So, we want to make sure that we're incarcerating the people that need to be incarcerated."
Statewide issue
Overcrowding is an issue across Missouri, Carey said.
Jackson County in the Kansas City metro area recently built a new $320 million, 1,000-bed jail, while Jefferson County south of St. Louis continues to house inmates in other counties.
Some of the best solutions to overcrowding in county jails include Missouri allocating funds to help mental health services and facilities and also reducing the amount of time that offenders spend sitting in jail while waiting for their court date, Kevin Merritt, executive director of the Missouri Sheriffs' Association, said in an email.
Merritt said that out of the 98 county jails in Missouri, around a quarter of the jails are suffering from overcrowding. Some counties, such as Jasper County and Perry County, have developed programs to help individuals with mental health and substance abuse issues get out of jail and involved in community services, which helps reduce overcrowding.
