Dear Editor: In your July 8 article, you quote Sheriff Kalvin Barrett saying, “If we were to open (the new jail) today, we would be at maximum capacity. That means we couldn’t fit any more people.” But actually, the current jail is smaller than the new jail. Yes, the new jail will be larger.
It seems bizarre to say that the new jail’s 825 beds is more than the current 1,013 beds. But the 1,013 number includes beds that are no longer used. The Ferris Center was decommissioned in 2024 but those 144 beds are included in that 1,013 number. Additionally, in August 2022 the Sheriff began renting beds in other jails and closed the seventh floor East pod for humanitarian reasons. That pod has 54 beds, according to the Smart and Viapath jail communications contracts. Closing those two parts of the jail reduced the current jail capacity to 815 beds. Smaller than the new jail, but still large enough that the 615 people reported as “under roof” on July 8 only fill 75% of the beds. Not a crisis…