A public meeting about the jail study results was held Wednesday (July 9th) in the courtroom of the Walworth County Courthouse in Selby. All five commissioners and several county residents were present to hear the proposal for a new jail in Walworth County.
The jail study panel at the meeting included Kevin Hall, Director of the South Dakota Division of Criminal Investigation and retired Pennington County Sheriff; Rob Yantis, former Pennington County Jail Administrator and current Policy & Operations Manager at the National Institute for Jail Operations; Quinn Reimers, representing Toby Morris of Colliers Securities in Pierre; and Dean Marske, President of HKG Architects in Aberdeen. According to Hall, a new functional jail would allow the County to “control its own destiny”.
The experts recommend that the new jail be located in Mobridge due to its proximity to medical and food facilities.
They recommend that it be built as a 32-bed facility with room for expansion so that male, female, and juvenile inmates can be properly housed and cared for, including mental health.
The panel estimated that they would need two and a half years to complete the project if they started right away. They also suggested that boarding out-of-county inmates be temporarily suspended once construction is completed to allow the new facility to operate efficiently.
