New Vigo Jail at 50% completion

May 6—Construction of the Vigo County Jail is just over the halfway mark to completion.

"We started Dec. 26, 2019 and we are just over 50%" completed, said Brian Kooistra, chief operations officer for Garmong Construction Services. Substantial completion for the jail is scheduled for March of 2022.

Vigo County Commissioner Brendan Kearns said the project remains on track and under budget.

"We were fortunate to have procured most materials before price increases," he said. "There have been delays on materials attributed to COVID-19 and manufacturing shortfalls, but we have not had issues tied to delays."

DLZ, an architectural and engineering firm that designed the jail, made a utility inspection of the facility last week, said Commissioner Chris Switzer.

Underground conduits are in place on the north side of the entrance and around the entrance road and building. Overhead duct work, electrical and plumbing are ongoing, Switzer said.

All interior blocking is completed on the sheriff's administration side, with dry wall starting and masonry painting has started.

In the jail office area, block walls are nearly complete and door frames are being installed and painting has started. In the jail area all concrete is completed.

Another feature that has been completed are skylights.

"The natural light features are evident now and will be a nice addition to the facility, providing a better atmosphere for employees and inmates," Kearns said.

Switzer said jail cell installation began last week.

"Before the jail cells were put in place, we had to put shims in to make sure they were on grade and all the shims are in and welded in place. The east side of the jail took delivery of jail cells," with 24 cells installed as of last week, he said.

The cells are stacked and then welded in place. A mezzanine will give access to the upper cells. Pauly Jail Building Co. has a crew on hand installing the jail cells, Switzer said.

Switzer was originally opposed to the current jail construction site.

In May 2019 Switzer, and former Councilwoman Lisa Spence-Bunnett, each voted against using the current site for the jail while serving on the Vigo County Council.

"I was really against [the current site] for transportation purposes," Switzer said. "But, as kind of a silver lining of COVID-19, it has made us realize that court by video is a thing that will stay. I don't know how much transportation we will have to have but we are going to do video arraignment and we can make that happen inside the jail.

"That is why I was hesitant on not building on the site where the jail is now, but we are building a transportation office with a sally port that is state-of-the art in the new jail, so I don't see any difficulties at all with having to transport a handful of inmates if they have to come" to the county courthouse, Switzer said.

"Inside the jail, there are attorney/inmate rooms for them to meet and there is a whole setup for video straight to the court," he said.

Jail population

Switzer said the county has to be vigilant to keep the jail population down.

"As being part of the [Vigo] County Council last year and appropriating money to the Community Corrections for dual diagnosis programming, I think we still need to focus a lot of our money there," Switzer said. "When people come to the jail, maybe we cannot just put them in jail where they will get no help, but we can get them in front of a psychiatrist or psychologist and have that opportunity to decide if jail is where they really need to go or if they just need help mentally or help with addiction," Switzer said.

"The focus for me is to try to detour those people from just going straight to jail through the dual diagnosis program and see if we can help them in another way before they are placed in that setting of being by themselves and not getting the help they need," Switzer said.

Vigo County Sheriff John Plasse said the county is still incurring legal actions due to overcrowding conditions at the current jail.

"I get lawsuit notifications and got a few recently, so they are still adding up," Plasse said of inmates complaining of conditions at the jail, several who are joining a class action federal lawsuit against the jail.

"I inherited a large problem," as sheriff, Plasse said.

"We are still overcrowded and we farm people out to other counties [for jail detention], so once we have room [in the new jail] it will be a relief for me and the jail staff and for the citizens of Vigo County who are paying to house inmates in other places and the lawsuits we keep getting," Plasse said.

The sheriff said the larger jail is the key to eliminating overcrowding.

"We need space to classify inmates based on the crimes they commit. You don't want to put the violent felons with the minor offenders and we have to keep sex offenders away from others, so this will allow us to do that a lot better. It will also allow us to quarantine people if needed, if COVID-19 is still an issue next year," Plasse said.

The new jail will have a negative air system "so if we have incident of a [disease] outbreak in one block, that negative air system keeps it in there, so it will not go to the next block," Plasse said. "It will be more beneficial for the health and well-being of the inmates. It will not let disease spread as COVID-19 did so rapidly with everybody on top of each other, with no way to separate them."

Additionally, the new jail will have recreation areas for each block as well as dedicated classrooms space. Additionally, video courtrooms will help reduce transportation, yet Plasse said use of video is up to each court judge.

March 22, 2022 is the slated date that sheriff's department employees can begin to train at the new jail, with inmates to be transferred in late March or early April 2022, Plasse said.

"It is a big project and takes time, but every day and the longer we are in this [current] jail, the more opportunities for more lawsuits. We will try to hang on and weather the storm until a new jail is built," Plasse said. "But this has been a problem since 1980 when Sheriff Andy Atelski then said we are building a new jail that was too small for the population. He was right and finally it is getting done right," Plasse said.

Reporter Howard Greninger can be reached 812-231-4204 or howard.greninger@tribstar.com. Follow on Twitter@TribStarHoward.