Officials get first look at new jail

Local officials got their first chance to review plans for the county's new regional jail and justice center on Tuesday as the process of refining and finalizing the design of the complex got underway.

Irb Benjamin with MCM Jail Development, Management and Consulting, spent much of Tuesday morning going over the design for each segment of the complex with the Alcorn County Board of Supervisors and the heads of each department to be housed there.

The department heads were given the opportunity to help refine the layout and design of their segments of the multi-million dollar complex set to be constructed on Harper Road near the Alcorn County Juvenile Detention Center.

The plans, created by The LeBlanc Group of Lafayette, La, call for a multi-jurisdictional facility that will house state and local inmates in separate areas, along with offices for the Alcorn County Sheriff's Department, Corinth Police Department, Corinth-Alcorn County E-911, Alcorn County Emergency Management, Alcorn County Justice Court, Corinth Municipal Court and others.

The state wing of the complex will serve as a Mississippi Department of Corrections Regional Jail and funds from an agreement between the county and MDOC for the housing of state inmates will be used to finance a large portion of the construction project. Additional funding comes from money received from the sale of a formerly county-owned nursing home and an agreement between the county and the city of Corinth to lease space for use by the police department and housing of city inmates.

A major issue addressed during Tuesday's design review was dealing with the large amount of vehicle traffic and visitors who will be coming to the complex. Because of the large variety of offices housed at the facility it is expected to be an extremely busy location and properly controlling traffic will be vital.

"Dealing with all of the traffic is the big issue," said Benjamin.

Among the ideas being considered are the creation of a separate, direct public entrance for the E-911 office in order to accommodate the large number of people who visit the office each day to make address changes.

There was also discussion of ways to deal with the large number of people paying fines in Justice Court or attending Justice Court sessions. Sheriff Charles Rinehart, who will be responsible for operating the jail, and Corinth Police Chief David Lancaster, also spent an extended amount of time with Benjamin discussing ways to make the most efficient use of the space available for their departments.

Rinehart and Lancaster both asked for a redesign of the county jail space to provide more beds for female prisoners. Lancaster said the female inmate population in the city and county continues to grow, primarily because of drug crimes and property crimes such as passing false checks.

Benjamin said he will take all of the changes discussed Tuesday back to the LeBlanc Group and he expects to be able to present a draft of the plans incorporating these changes in approximately three weeks.

The consultant told supervisors he believes it will take two or three more review sessions before a design can be finalized and they hope to be able to advertise for bids and award a construction contract by mid to late September.