T.K. Waters lauds Jacksonville City Council ‘visionary leadership’ as it explores a new jail, police HQ

Image via T.K. Waters.

Jacksonville’s Sheriff is reacting to the draft version of a special committee’s report on the future of local policing incarceration.

With the current jail outmoded and presenting safety and habitability concerns, T.K. Waters thanked the Special Committee of the Council to Review JSO Primary Facilities for its “visionary leadership” in explorations on what a new police headquarters and jail might look like, with “functional, safe, and sustainable facilities.”

“Without a police headquarters and detention facility that can meet the needs of a growing Jacksonville, this city will not be able to realize its potential as a hub of business, industry, and culture,” Waters wrote in a letter dated May 13.

The committee’s draft report is unsparing in its descriptions of the Police Memorial Building, a “45-year-old building in a state of disrepair, with an abundance of cracking floors, plumbing leaks and water damage, and dilapidated restrooms.”

It’s no kinder to the mold-ridden and deteriorated jail that was built back in 1991, which despite $12 million a year in maintenance, faces a backlog of deferred repairs for a facility that has some residents in place for as long as a year at a time.

“It was designed to house 2,189 inmates at any given time, but now holds approximately 2,600 inmates. It is important to note that its layout has never been expanded. As a function to expand the facility’s capacity within its own walls, portable beds units have been added to cells and common areas of the jail.”

The committee found that the “overcapacity limits access to vital resources and services for inmates, imposes significant stress on staff, and inhibits overall efficiency.”

“The overcapacity of the facility, as well as the outdated infrastructure, unwelcoming design features, and lack of adequate, modern staff amenities have hindered JSO’s ability to recruit and retain correctional officers and staff,” the report noted.

Indeed, correctional staffing has been a recurrent issue. A recent training class saw just 11 new hires advance from a class of jail guards designed to contain 40 new recruits.

The time frame contemplated by the Special committee suggests that the jail build will happen in a roughly parallel fashion with the stadium renovations sought by the Mayor Donna Deegan administration, with up to six months for pre-design planning, up to 18 months for facility design, and an additional three years for construction, building commissioning and post-construction services.

A new jail could cost up to a billion dollars in currently valued money, roughly the anticipated cost of stadium renovations. To put the proposed spending in perspective, Jacksonville’s most recent General Fund budget was $1.75 billion, the biggest budget in local history.

Deegan has said Waters wanted to get the stadium done before the jail, which was a take a Waters spokesperson disputed earlier this year, saying the conversation was “nothing more than an acknowledgment of his understanding that both the jail and stadium renovations cannot be completed during the same fiscal year.”