Options for County Corrections
By Albert B. Kelly
Sometimes in local government, there are problems to be solved with no good options. At other times, there potentially good options, but all of them come with an expensive price tag. Such is the challenge of what to do about the county jail and county corrections. Unlike clean water, recreation, and snow removal, corrections is one of those services you wish you didn’t have to provide.
I say that because no one gets excited over building a jail in the same way that no one gets excited about the idea of having a jail in their community. All recognize that it’s a necessary evil, but it’s a classic not-in-my-backyard issue. Bridgeton is home to the county jail and as the county seat, playing host comes with the territory. But with an urgent need at this time to provide a safe and modern facility, we need to consider how to get the most bang for the buck.
One option is to invest money updating and modernizing the current jail facility. I think this option can be set aside for the obvious reason that to invest money into this aging and obsolete structure would be a waste of taxpayer dollars. The current facility was not designed with overall security and officer safety in mind and no amount of investment can make up for this deficiency. Beyond that, its systems (HVAC, electric, plumbing) cannot deliver the type efficiencies required of modern facilities.
Another option is to follow through on the original idea of building a brand new facility on the site originally secured for that purpose off of Buckshutem Road. This is certainly a better option than trying to patch up the current jail but on this side of the pandemic, with inflation and supply chain issues, you can add 40% on top of whatever the original price tag was thought to be.
Building a new facility from scratch will certainly provide this county with a safe and modern facility, but trying to choke down that price tag, whatever it might be, for a necessary evil, is an awfully hard “ask” to put before the tax base. Given the current inflationary climate and rising interest rates, building from scratch does not seem like the best option.
With the consolidation plans involving Southern State Prison and Bayside, there has been talk of utilizing some portion of those facilities to house county inmates. If we have to spend millions in taxpayer funds, I’m not at all sure it should be for facilities that are no better than what we currently have. Beyond being a bad use of limited funds, any such solution is a temporary one that would still require us to find a long term solution.
That leaves us with pursuing shared services as the best value for the dollar. When serious thought was being given to building a new facility in the county, there was a focus on being on the receiving end of the shared service. Now that building a new facility is much less appealing, we would be on the sending side of the shared services equation.
But this has several advantages. In addition to solving the need to provide for corrections at the county level, it would allow the County to demolish the current jail and expand the county courthouse, which is needed. More importantly from the standpoint of Bridgeton, it would remove the jail from the downtown area and allow the space not used for courthouse expansion to be redeveloped with some type of commercial or mixed-use redevelopment.
This has the benefit of expanding the ratable base and generating new economic activity which is something that is sorely needed and serves to mitigate the expenditures associated with shared services. Such redevelopment could serve as a catalyst for redevelopment of the courthouse hill neighborhood.
The other end of that value-added equation is redeveloping
the Buckshutem Road site. This location, sitting between Bridgeton and
Fairfield Township, can be made available for manufacturing or light industrial
activities providing benefits for both communities and the western side of the
county overall.
As suggested at the outset, no one gets excited about investing money into corrections and no one wants to have a jail or a prison in their midst. Using a shared services approach, it is possible to solve our corrections needs while at the same time generating economic activity that adds to the tax base and creates jobs and that’s no small thing.