Print

Email story

Comment

Letter to the editor

Renovated bus garage ready to ease jail crowding

The first 240 inmates will move in Sunday to the annex that cost $3-million to upgrade.

By JONATHAN ABEL, Times Staff Writer
Published January 24, 2008

Sheriff's Cpl. Kathleen Peyinghaus is at work at the jail annex on 49th Street. The converted bus garage can house 256 inmates.
	[Jonathan Abel | Times]

It's a metamorphosis on 49th Street.

Take a vacant county bus garage and add $3-million in renovations.

Voila: a minimum-security jail.

The Pinellas County Sheriff's Office on Wednesday showed off its new 256-bed annex just north of the existing jail.

The first 240 inmates, who will move in Sunday, are made up of inmates assigned to work details and those involved in the Project New Attitudes life skills program.

One of the main benefits of the extra space, officials said, is that it helps alleviate overcrowding at the jail's main facility.

But the annex also improves security by keeping the work crew inmates separate from the general population. That cuts the number of work inmates who go through the main compound and reduces the number of outside vehicles that come by to pick up and drop off workers.

"We're not bringing any persons over here that we've had problems with," said Lt. David Robinson, who oversees the facility.

Inside the jail annex, there are four main living areas, two with 56 beds and two with 72 beds. The walls are largely white, with occasional pastel blue and green accents.

In addition to high-tech security features, the jail rooms also have some softer touches like skylights.

They are left over from the garage. It would have cost more to remove them than replace them, Robinson said.

The wide-open rooms are designed for constant "direct supervision" of all the beds at once

A single officer can survey the entire living area, unlike more traditional cell blocks where an officer goes on rounds and may pass by a cell only once or twice an hour.

Cpl. Kathleen Peyinghaus, who will work in the facility, praised it for its smaller, community-type feeling. That makes it a more comfortable environment for correcting and rehabilitating the inmates, not just detaining them.

And it's good for the deputies, too.

"Everyone on our staff volunteered to be here," said Cpl. Terry Bratcher. "We were hand-picked out of 120 applicants."

Jonathan Abel can be reached at jabel@sptimes.com or (727) 445-4157.

[Last modified January 23, 2008, 23:25:53]