Muscatine

If you want answers, I can give a few. The feds or any other county that houses their prisoners pay $65.90/day.  It costs $6.00/day to feed them, and they need to shower and have their stuff washed, so say $10.00/day.  That leaves $55.90/day profit.  The feds prisoners are usually here 6 months - a year or two.  Any prisoner that is housed in our jail gets medical paid by whoever brings them, not by us.  Now say we have 60 people in jail from Muscatine County, the jail will hold about 100 and be 95% full.  We house 40 extra and make $55.90/day for each, that would be $2,236.00, so for a year we would have $816,140.00.  Pretty good money. 

We already have the employees working, because we have enough prisoners, so why not house outside prisoners?  Makes sense!  The $$ made goes to the general fund, which is used to pay county workers, (Auditors, Treasurer, Recorder, all people that work in these offices, Jail employees, etc.) The $$ made would also help pay for the new pod. If there isn't enough in the fund to pay for all of it, there are other options...like bonds.  By the way, Not all of your tax money goes to the county, if you look at the statement about 19% goes to the county. If anyone has questions about where the money goes they can call Sherry Seright 263-5317.

When the jail was built it was designed to add another pod. It was projected another would be needed in 10-12 years. 

The work release center....is open for now, but would need way too much money to get it up to state jail inspector's standards.  It is a temporary solution.  If we don't build the pod, we can't make the extra $, and it would be better to have all the prisoners at one location. Why put $ into a pole building that was put up in 1992? The WRC holds about 30 and the new pod would hold 60-100.

Now, as for the Sheriff thinking the jail is his...never heard him say anything like this. He is in charge of the jail though.  He has to follow Iowa's rules.   The Iowa Administrative Code dictates what he has to do to run the jail. (Chapter 201, Sub Chapter 50). 

Some time ago, someone made a comment about how the Sheriff is not qualified to be the Chief of Police, but the Chief of Police is qualified to be Sheriff.  The Sheriff is qualified to be A Chief of Police, but not in Muscatine...To be the Chief in Musc., it is required to had a bachelor degree. I am NOT saying anything bad about the Chief of Police, just stating some facts.

The answers are out there......just made some phone calls.

You are once again 100% correct in your post. Did you ask what guarantee or assurance the Feds give that they will/can use the space? I do know the answer to that question. There is none other than a handshake and a wink. I do not want my tax dollars going to an effort that may or may not pan out. Yes I understand how much money they do already spend here. Please consider how many jails have been and are being built in the state. I would suggest that at some point there wil be an excess and I dont want us to be the ones holding the bag. One of the other things that needs to be considered is, as I stated earlier, what new modern methods are being used elsewhere that can/will reduce the need/cost of incarcerating folks? We are not even considering them.

We are somehow convinced that building is good without even exploring options. That is my objection and I think if folks will think about it and not follow blindlly, they will see some need to do so.It is easy to build a place to house folks and throw them away.It is hard to solve the problems associated with it. It is better for society that we attempt to solve the problems and not throw good money after bad. Yes there are bad people that need to be locked up. No argument there. We need to look at who we are locking up.