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The use of technology at the new Polk County Jail has made the task of managing inmates safer, more efficient and more cost effective.

And though Leesa Shoemaker, chief of the Polk County sheriff’s office’s jail division, wouldn’t refer to the jail’s operation as a business, or to prisoners as customers, the agency employs more than 300 people to serve approximately 17,000 to 19,000 inmates a year.

“We’re not in it to make a profit by any means,” said Shoemaker, “but anything we can do to offset the cost, that’s what we’re about.”

Since the jail opened in November 2008, nearly 12,000 inmates have been booked at the $68 million facility at 1985 N.E. 51st Place north of Des Moines.

The jail’s design allows a smaller staff to provide better supervision, officials say, and a new security and electronics system enables staff members to better monitor and control building security.

“With the (advent) of new technology, that cuts down on the number of staff we have to hire,” Shoemaker said.

“That’s your largest expenditure, the hiring of staff,” she said.

Jan Sears, director of the sheriff’s office, said that at the old jail, 5.1 staff members were required to manage a group of 36 inmates in any given 24-hour period, while at the new facility, the same number of staff can manage 64 inmates in the same time frame.

“Our housing units were designed to be flexible and are able to be used for several purposes with minimal effort,” said Jana Rooker, public information officer.

Nineteen of the jail’s 31 dormitory-style housing units are currently in use, Rooker said, allowing the facility to house up to 900 to 1,000 inmates. At full capacity, 1,520 inmates could be accommodated, and the 40-acre site has room for expansion, boosting the number to 2,500 if necessary.

Two to three officers staff the jail’s darkened master control room, utilizing more than 280 cameras to monitor the 325,000-square-foot building, including 1,800 doors. Though most of the cameras are stationary, several of them can pan, tilt and zoom, allowing officers to read license plates in the parking lot or watch cars passing on Interstate 80 to the south. If necessary, control room officers could seize complete control of the jail in 15 seconds.

Digital photo and fingerprinting equipment in the jail’s intake and classification area enable the identification technicians to quickly forward that information. The system is set up to immediately transmit the data to the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation, and its proximity to arriving inmates makes the process more convenient for officers, cutting down on backlogs, Rooker said.

Transportation issues

In addition to reducing staffing expenses, the opening of the new jail has significantly trimmed transportation costs.

“Our number of inmates hasn’t changed dramatically,” Sears said, noting that on a year-over-year basis there has been only a slight increase. But the jail division’s needs had outgrown its former downtown facility, forcing the county to ship inmates to other jails around the state and in Missouri. The cost of housing inmates out of county averaged more than $500,000 a month.

“We spent a ton of money just transporting inmates out of county and shuffling them all over,” Shoemaker said, adding that having them all incarcerated at one location is one of the biggest ways operating costs have been reduced. It also helps jailers better monitor inmate behavior, thereby increasing staff safety, she said.

With the exception of staging inmates for court at the former downtown jail building and extradition situations, the new facility has mitigated costs associated with the “inmate shuffle,” Shoemaker said, which included paying other municipalities to house, clothe and feed Polk County inmates.

“Now they’re all here in one spot,” Shoemaker said. “The family knows where they’re at so they’re not moving around constantly and having to travel long distances.”

Quality of Life

To some degree, officials maintain, the new facility and technologies have also improved inmates’ quality of life and benefited their loved ones.

New features in the jail’s lobby are a prime example, said Lt. Matt Mertens.

Those features include electronic visitation stations that allow visitors to converse with prisoners via videoconferencing, lessening the need for staff members to sign in visitors and escort inmates away from their housing units.

“This allows more visits per week for the inmates and multiple inmates doing visits at one time without using more staff,” Mertens said.

A kiosk in the lobby, resembling an automated teller machine, allows friends and family members to quickly obtain information about how to bond out inmates and deposit money into detainees’ accounts for use in the commissary.

Not only is the system more efficient, Mertens said, but the money appears instantly in the prisoners’ accounts, minimizing the potential for lost funds.

On-site medical and court services also limit the need to move inmates. Closed circuit televisions allow visitors to watch and listen to court proceedings, and in addition to reducing daily inmate transports, the jail court expedites inmates’ initial appearances. Shoemaker said a Web conferencing system, which will allow attorneys to communicate with inmates from an off-site location, is also in the works.

“The design improves efficiency for us, but ultimately it was to assist the public,” Mertens said. “The whole design of this jail is that everything comes to the inmate instead of the inmate coming to you.”

Inmates now have flat-screen televisions, cable TV and phones in their housing units, Shoemaker said, but the improvements haven’t garnered a lot of respect.

“Inmates are inmates,” she said. “They’re really not happy no matter where they go, so they can always find something to complain about.”

The prisoners are charged $50 a day to stay at the jail, billable upon sentencing, Shoemaker said. Proceeds from the “hotel bill,” as well as earnings from the commissary, go into Polk County’s general fund.

During the average 19-day stay, inmates will spend $50 to $100 a week “if they can,” Mertens said.

Self-containment

Rooker said that 90 percent of the new jail’s staff members are civilian detention officers, rather than sworn staff officers, saving Polk County taxpayers approximately 10 percent per position.

The self-contained facility includes a full-service laundry and large kitchen to serve the entire jail, Mertens said, and employs no outside contractors for its day-to-day operations. It also contains a 24-hour infirmary, fully equipped to address the prisoners’ medical needs. Five semitrailer-sized generators ensure backup power is available.

Nearly $30 million was appropriated to operate the jail for the fiscal year that ended June 30, an amount Sears said was inflated due to transitional expenses, such as initial stocking of inventory items, and off-site medical and housing expenses from the previous fiscal year and throughout the move, as well as expenses for initial staff training prior to their being certified for jail operations.

Once everything is tallied this month, she added, “it is anticipated that actual expenditures will be lower than the appropriation.”

According to Sears, the 2009/2010 fiscal year operating budget has been certified at $27,976,155, compared with a 2007/2008 budget of $24.3 million.

Though cutting costs, improving efficiency and providing customer service to visitors and inmates are all aspects of the jail’s operation, Shoemaker said ensuring the safety of her staff is the top priority.

“In reality, in my opinion, the inmates come second and the staff comes first,” she said. “They spend eight hours a day here; they do way more time than any inmate does. The whole goal is to make it a safe, clean working environment for the staff members.

“We’re here to provide a service because we’re mandated to,” she added. “I can’t think of one more thing, other than installing a pool and letting them all go swim in the back yard,” that could be provided to make the inmates’ time easier.

“This is how jails are being built now,” Mertens said. “A lot of people want to come and see what we have going on here.”

(Tyler O’Neil contributed to this article.)