On a tour of the Montezuma County jail this week, county leaders learned that the facility isn’t meeting demands.
Montezuma County commissioners Keenan Ertel, Larry Don Suckla and James Lambert toured the 104-bed facility on Monday, April 27. Commander Vici Pierce explained that the 2001 facility lacks certain needs, including additional housing space for female inmates.
“We sometimes have up to 30 female inmates at any given time,” said Pierce. “They all have to share the same pod no matter their risk level.”
Pierce also said the jail could also utilize padded cell space for those inmates that attempt to hurt themselves.
“There are a lot of things I would change,” Pierce said.
Montezuma County Sheriff Steve Nowlin said the facility also needed security updates in the outdoor yard in case the facility had to be evacuated during an emergency such as a fire or flood.
“We need a safe, secure place to funnel inmates outside,” said Nowlin. “Right now, we would have to take them out to the county fairgrounds.”
Nowlin also requested a part-time building maintenance manager, saying it took three months earlier this year to replace a simple doorstop in the lobby. Nowlin said a maintenance official could help reduce the wait time for more serious repairs, such as leaking toilets or worse, cell doors that don’t lock.
“There’s a long list of repairs,” Nowlin said. “The building is more than 10 years old, and things have been neglected way too long.”
Originally, plans called for a 190-bed jail, but one wing, or pod, of cells was scratched from the design at a savings of about $1 million. When built, the jail was designed to later add inmate pods with relatively ease.
tbaker@cortezjournal.com