The Platte County Commission has unveiled its plans for an expanded and renovated Platte County Detention Center.
Commissioners heard a presentation from County Administrator Wes Minder at the Monday, May 13 administrative session. The detention center master plan covered the history of the jail facilities and efforts made so far to determine what to do next.
In the 1970s the historic courthouse building was expanded to the north of the courthouse to house prisoners and in 1998 a new sheriff’s office and detention center designed to house 151 inmates was opened. In 2018, the detention center was renovated to house 174 inmates.
In a press release issued last week about the upcoming master plan presentation, Minder said the 1990s structure designed to serve the county’s needs for 20 years, and constructed to house 151 inmates in seven housing pods. By 2022, the average daily population was 214 inmates and last week the population was 196 inmates. The current jail also has limited ability to house inmates being held for municipal violations.
In 1990, when the current jail was in the planning phases, the county’s population was 57,867. The 2020 population is 104,959 and by 2050 the Mid-America Regional Council predicts Platte County’s population will grow to more than 146,000.
With that population growth comes the need for more jail space to hold offenders, Minder said.
He outlined the process over the past decade to address the jail problem, starting with studies done in 2014 and the first citizen jail committee. Another committee was formed last year, and recommended construction of a multi-story addition housing an additional 312 new beds, to create a facility housing 464 beds in at least 13 pods built in the same general arrangement as the current jail. Expansion of service areas, including the kitchen, laundry, holding areas and attorney-client meeting rooms would also be included.
Late last year, commissioners selected HMN Architects to design the new facility. Founded in 1989, HMN has constructed the Cole County Jail in Jefferson City among others across Missouri. Engineers Henderson Engineers and Walter P. Moore were also selected.
HMN representatives presented an overview of the plan, which would be constructed on-site and would meet county needs until 2048. It features the ability to separate violent and non-violent inmates, expands the medical and mental health division, relocates prisoner intake into a new lower level and transforms the “Futures” area – the basement of the current jail – into trustee facilities and additional support service space, such as kitchen and laundry.
The cells would be in prefabricated units with the shell of the jail built on site and the prebuilt pods lifted into place. The prefabricated cells would allow HVAC and plumbing to be located in an outer hallway, eliminating the safety concerns for maintenance workers in the jail.
Prosecutor Eric Zahnd spoke about his office’s attempts to help mitigate overcrowding, pointing at investments in video technology, the Platte Cares diversion program that helps first-time offenders work their way through the system and avoid jail time.
That program is up to about 150 graduates. The county has also invested in treatment court programs, with courts for drugs, DWI, veterans and mental health. In 2023, 44 people graduated from the treatment court programs with 82 active participants so far this year. The county is investing more in pre-trial services for appropriate cases with spending up from $10,000 in 2018 to almost $390,000 in 2023.
“I can’t overstate the importance of having enough jail cells for public safety,” Zahnd said. “One of the worst things that can happen to a community is to run out of jail cells for those that need them, like violent offenders, sexual offenders and those that just won’t show up to court.”
Platte County Sheriff Mark Owen pointed out that the current jail poses safety issues for both sheriff’s office staff and general county building maintenance staff. He listed the crimes for which current inmates are incarcerated which range from assaults and larcenies to homicides and sexual crimes involving children.
Owen said he was on the committee that built the old jail and at the time it was meant to last 20-25 years.
“There is no more room – we’re out of room,” Owen said. “At one point we hit 240 inmates and this jail was not designed for 240 inmates.”
Due to federally-mandated separation requirements, different classifications of inmates need to be separated in different ways. There is no longer room to separate people as needed.
The jail was well built when it was done, Owen said, but it’s slowly decaying and people are capable of breaking or peeling parts of the jail away and make weapons. Owen showed commissioners a bolt that had been sharpened on concrete to a razor point, stating that the makeshift weapon is capable of penetrating the officers’ protective vests.
The renovation of the existing jail and the modern design of the new jail space would eliminate a lot of these concerns.
In the press release, Owen said, “We appreciated the input from the Committee for Public Safety and their recommendations confirm what the county needs to support law enforcement employees to address the increases in crime with a growing population. The existing jail is overcrowded and the staff required to service it are consuming resources that could be better used for patrolling and responding to 911 calls.”
Also in the press release, Fricker reiterated the population growth the county has experienced.
“The population growth comes with greater needs for public safety facilities,” Fricker said. “As more people continue to move into Platte County, we can no longer afford a band-aid approach to our outdated and over-crowded center. By expanding our detention center, we are making an investment in public safety today and for the future. We are committed to public safety in Platte County and expanding our detention center will continue to keep our streets safe.”
He thanked the members of the various committees as well as officeholders and staff for their work on the master planning process.
“We want to make sure the impact is limited on the taxpayers,” Fricker said, stating next week the county would outline its next steps.