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Letter to the Editor: Indianola jail situation shows possible problems

Kate Hayden, Indianola

It was not a surprise to hear that my home county’s jail conundrum was presented as an example of “chaos” at a meeting of Floyd County residents regarding a new jail proposal there.

Some additional context, in case anyone’s interested in it:

District court services were removed from the Warren County Jail in June 2016. The jail, sheriff’s office and dispatch services were still located on the third floor until state inspector Delbert Longley closed the jail on Feb. 2, 2018. Today Warren County prisoners are transported to neighboring counties.

Longley first told the supervisors the jail would need to be shut down back in May 2015, according to past Indianola Record Herald reports. In 2018, there is still no consensus among supervisors and city police departments on where the new jail should be located.

The county spent $304,000 on transporting prisoners between July 1, 2016 and June 30, 2017 – before the jail was shut for good.  In November, Supervisor Crystal McIntyre estimated the county will pay more than $2 million a year to transport inmates if a new jail wasn’t built in the next 20 years.

Before the jail was closed for good, the county supervisors asked police departments in three cities to pitch in for temporary “jail trailers” that would be used to process inmates before they are transported to neighboring county jails. The price was not clear, but the Warren County sheriff estimated the cost at $18,400 per month. It is not clear if this is still being investigated as an option.

In August 2017, a state letter to the county outlined issues including leaking sewage, mold growing on pipes, open electrical boxes and wires and an HVAC system that did not work. It also notes two prisoners escaped from the 78-year-old building in 2015 (one who was later charged with vehicular manslaughter), a third prisoner escaped in 2016 and a fourth prisoner committed suicide in 2016. The Department of Corrections tied poor facility conditions and outdated jail cell models to these incidents.

Kaye Hayden is a former Press reporter and resident of Charles City.

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