Jefferson County Indiana Sheriff's Department begins move into new Madison, Indiana jail

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- The Jefferson County Sheriff's Department's jail in Madison, Indiana has stood in the heart of downtown since 1848, making it one of the oldest free-standing jails in the entire state.

On Friday, the department officially started to say goodbye, as it moves into its new facility up the hill. 

The county broke ground on the new facility three years ago. The work began under previous administration and current Sheriff Ben Flint said it has been a culmination of a lot of hard work.

"It’s been a painstaking process that’s came to fruition, and it’s turned into a really amazing place. It’s been eye opening, it’s been a great experience to be part of such a historic event for the community and Jefferson County," said Flint. "Our objective is to get the administrative section of the sheriff’s department open by Tuesday of next week, with the jail to follow, probably going to be coming in the first of next year."

The department has seen a few upgrades over the course of several decades, but all of them have just been built around the original jail. Flint said moving into the new facility provides a much needed increase in space and capabilities to accommodate the modern needs of a sheriff's department. 

"In the old facility we were running into aging piping, and we’ve been running into overcrowding, our biggest issue. The state mandates we have X-number of inmates per our facility, and we were over that threshold for quite some time. This allows us to now be in compliance," he explained. "We don’t have to worry about the overcrowding issue which is better safety for our staff, better safety for our inmates and just an overall better environment."

The new jail increases bed size from 109 to 309. Flint said the expanded capacity not only helps with handling more inmates, but also greatly increases security. 

"We have no more than two per cell. Everybody has their individual spot they can all go in, they can be locked down, and it makes it a lot better and a lot more efficient for the staff as well as the inmates," Flint said. 

When commenting on overcrowding in the old jail Flint stated, "It’s an increased workload, and if the facility is not prepared for that and is not engineered for that, it makes it hard. It makes it troubling to get everybody fed because your kitchen is a little smaller and your space. You walk into a day room and you may have inmates sleeping on the floors and you have staff trying to weave in-and-out of them, which creates a safety issue for them and creates a safety issue for the inmates as well because we can’t protect them as well as we should."

County Commissioner Bobby Little has worked with the county for 11 years. He said they first received a letter from the state in August 2017 notifying the jail it was in violation of its capacity mandates. 

Little said another renovation was considered but ultimately overruled because it wouldn't be cost-efficient. Eventually an entire new build was planned. “The jail downtown was a dinosaur. We didn’t have any option,” he said. 

Throughout his time in office, Little said he's seen many push for the needed improvements for the jail but said the difference this time was "teamwork."

"There wasn’t any party alliances, it was just this is what we have to do and we all worked together and got it done," Little said. 

Under the new design and technology, Little estimates inmate-staff interaction will be reduced by about 50%.

The new facility also includes two new classrooms, which can hold approximately 30 inmates each. 

"It also gives us the ability to have programs for the inmates; GED programs, religious programs, JCAP programs, rehab-type programs. All these programs that kind of got frozen back in COVID days and the overcrowded issues we were having," said Flint. 

Flint said the move shouldn't impact response times at all. "The City of Madison covers the downtown jurisdiction anyway, and the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Department, we’re responsible for the outlying areas," he said. "Now we’re actually in the county, so that allows us to be more centrally-located."

Little and Flint said the future of the old jail remains uncertain, but it will likely remain in corrections. 

"We’ve been talking about either a juvenile facility or the federal department bringing there’s in. The way it’s build with the concrete and the metal doors and stuff, we’re probably going to have to do something in that aspect. It wouldn’t be cost feasible to try and remodel for something else," said Little. "Hopefully, we can get it filled quite soon after we get up here so it doesn’t fit.”