Following a groundbreaking ceremony this week, construction of the new Warrick County Sheriff’s Office and Security Center will soon be underway.
At $54 million, the construction bid is currently $3 million under budget.
This 83,000 square foot facility will be located on High Rock Boulevard in Boonville, and take two years to complete.
Warrick County Sheriff Mike Wilder said planning has taken six years. He said the jail was becoming overcrowded, but then emptied out during the pandemic.
“So in the short term that actually helped our jail population,” he said. “But right now, we've already seen our jail population kind of back up again, back up to where it's going to exceed how many beds you have, very shortly again.”
Wilder wanted to build a new jail before being compelled a lawsuit. A lawsuit spurred the construction of a new facility in Gibson County.
He said they’d also already run out of office space. In the past they moved personnel around and remodeled two or three times.
Wilder said it was designed over the past two years with the future, and being multipurpose in mind.
The current facility was built more than 30 years ago in a time when there were 17 deputies, and 121 beds.
Now there are 58 deputies and this new facility will have 234 beds. Not all beds will be filled, but he’s working to plan for the future.
He said more is expected of county jails and they have to adapt for the times.
“We're basically running a hotel, a hospital … all these different things, a restaurant, for people that don't even want to be here,” he said. “So you think about it, that it's really a tough environment.”
He said currently they also have no room for programming – something included in the new design.
“This is an opportunity to hopefully rehabilitate them in the short term ... their stays are starting to become a lot longer than they were 20-30 years ago.”
Most of the budget is funded through the public safety tax, and will not increase taxes.
Wilder said the fate of the current facility is mainly in the hands of the county commission.