Scott City looks to improve jail security

The Scott City Police Department's jail could soon become safer to load and unload inmates. The city council voted Oct. 5 to start seeking construction bids for a sally port, or enclosed parking area, that would help ensure inmates remain in a locked building while being loaded into or unloaded from police vehicles.

The sally port could be constructed by Jan. 1 and range in price from $25,000 to $85,000, Scott City Mayor Tim Porch said. He said the city would probably be able to afford the sally port because construction businesses are making lower bids for projects.

"I've talked to several contractors," Porch said. "Things are so slow in the construction market that people are interested in projects that they wouldn't normally be interested in."

The sally port would be attached to the jail, Scott City police chief David Leemon said. After police vehicles transporting inmates park in the sally port, two garage doors would lock and police would escort inmates from the vehicles through the door leading to the jail. A sally port is safer than the current procedure in which police officers escort inmates to the jail through the open-air parking lot, which isn't surrounded by a fence, Leemon said.

Leemon said an inmate has never tried to escape during transport in the 12 years he's been a police officer in Scott City. He said most inmates are not that dangerous and the longest stay of any inmate is about six months. About once or twice a week, city police transport inmates to places such as the Scott County Jail, Leemon said.

Scott City voters passed a capital improvements sales tax in 2005 to fund the sally port, Porch said. It would be phase two of three in the city's refurbishing of public buildings.

The city has raised about $80,000 every year since passing the ordinance authorizing the quarter-cent sales tax, city administrator Ron Eskew said.

After the completion of phase one, which involved painting public buildings, the city has about $95,000 from the tax, he said. It is set to expire March 31, 2011.

The city's general revenue fund would also help pay the sally port.

Eskew said some of the sally port might rest on property of neighbor Vince Fernandez. It would be built on an alley, which is an easement, between the jail and Fernandez's property, and Eskew said he doesn't know where the easement ends. But he said he would want the city to buy property from Fernandez if needed to build the sally port.

"I couldn't sell just one or two lots," said Fernandez, who has been a landlord for 20 years. "If I sold just a couple lots I'd be taking the property down [in value]. I would sell the house I'm living in and everything" else.

He would not say how much his house and all his properties are worth.

Fernandez said he and his wife would move into another house he is almost finished restoring.

The sally port would benefit the police department in other ways, according to a city council memo. Benefits would include limiting the chance of prisoner escape during recreational periods, shielding police vehicles from harsh weather, creating additional storage space for jail equipment and preventing police department flooding during heavy rainfalls.

If enough funds are available, Porch said, the city could begin phase three of refurbishing city buildings by mid-July. That phase would include adding three rooms to the jail, one to hold women, one to hold juveniles and one to hold people either suicidal or dangerously intoxicated. The sales tax and the general revenue fund would pay for that construction.