Recent incident at Sac County Jail highlights need for new jail
According to Sac County Sheriff Ken McClure, on June 4th, inmate, Artis Karazins of Lake View was able to squeeze through the food pass-through on the door as the jailer was placing food into the cell. Karazins got out, assaulted the jailer, then chased the jailer down steps into the booking area where two deputy sheriffs were able to subdue him and get him in handcuffs.
Karazins was sent to Loring Hospital in Sac City for observation before being transported to the Woodbury County Jail.
'That slot is 14-inches wide and 8 inches high. That just goes back to we have a 90-year-old jail. We're just not set up for security and safety for that reason. We're very fortunate that we didn't get someone seriously hurt that day' said Sac County Sheriff Ken McClure.
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According to the sheriff, it's incidents like this that shows a new facility is needed.
' He's an example of inmates we're just not designed to hold here. Our jail is so old, we don't have a secure way to keep them. We don't have a padded cell for inmates who are having either they're intoxicated, violent or they're having psychotic events and they're uncontrolling.'
A new jail would solve that problem and help prevent more incidents like this according to the Sheriff.
'The new jail construction, first of all, would have see through, mirrored glass from the corridor that the jailer could have looked in and saw the inmate potentially charging where this, it's just a steel door and you have to get up on your tippy-toes to look in and the window is only so wide.'
Right now, the jail can hold 24 inmates and during a typical year, up to 300 inmates will be booked into the jail. But they can't hold female inmates here and females have to be held at other nearby jails and that cost money.
'Buena Vista County charges us $75 a day, I think Ida County charges us $55 a day, Carroll County, I believe, is charging us $60 a day,' added Sheriff McClure.
A bond vote for a new jail was held last November and fell just over 1% short of the 60% needed to pass. The sheriff hopes to have another vote for a new jail this November, but there's a lot to do before then, like find out the updated cost projections.
'Once we get those cost projections, we'll get that to the bonding agency, figure out what our tax impact is going to be on our citizens. We now have a jail committee that is formed, we'll bring that to the jail committee and hopefully they will make the recommendation to the Board of Supervisors to call for a special election in November.'
If the jail is approved, it will be built across the street from the current jail and will take about two years to complete.
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