By C1 Staff
CHARLES CITY, Iowa — A recent inspection of the Floyd County Jail revealed a number of facility issues need to be upgraded in order to prevent shutting down the facility.
According to the Globe Gazette, inspector Delbert Longley pointed out that the laundry room being in close proximity to the exercise room leaves staff open to assaults.
Changes needs to be made to the jail office, which doubles as the booking area, to make it more secure; newer jails have walls rather than bars, which is what the cells at the Floyd County Jail are constructed of.
Bars can be a “suicide tool,” according to Longley.
He also recommended switching to a visitation system where visitors would remain in another area of the courthouse and communicate with inmates via video rather than the current system, which has visitors coming into the jail and communicating with inmates via a phone and glass window.
A decision about whether to keep jail operations the way they are or to make the jail into an overnight holding facility with long-term inmates going to Mitchell county is now pending. It’s hoped that some short-term improvements can be made to the jail for the present.
Long-term solutions include either remodeling the jail or building a new one.