Madison county leaders meet to discuss plans for the jail

JACKSON, Tenn — Madison County leaders gathered Wednesday to discuss plans on what is next for the county jail, as well as the current conditions of the facility.

The jail planning committee consists of city and county officials. Wednesday’s meeting began with an overview of major problems with the present facility, such as security windows not being properly attached to the building.

“The last thing we want to do is for someone to be able to push one of those windows out after we spend a good bit of money on the building,” architect for the project, Buddy Golson said.

Golson is with Rosser International which has a lead role in the project. He gave a presentation highlighting key points of what the county should consider improving.

“We might want to add some cameras in certain areas maybe in the lobby and kitchen a few blind spots, but overall security looks like it is in fairly good shape,” Golson said.

County Mayor Jimmy Harris said the meeting is one of many steps to determine the future of the Criminal Justice Complex.

“We’re taking as broad of a look as we can at this thing and doing as much planning as we can not only for our immediate needs but for the future needs,” Harris said.

According to Mayor Harris, planning is moving much slower than he would like, but he said it is important to keep having discussions before anything is finalized.

“Continue to narrow down the process into #1, what we need but as well as how it will look physically and then we will get down to what we can afford,” said Mayor Harris.

Harris said the planning committee hopes to have a completed outline from architects, with incorporated ideas from county leaders along with final numbers for the cost of the project, by December 18.