County targets opening of jail booking center for July 7
In a little more than three months, Washington County officials are looking forward to opening what the warden is calling a “transitional” booking center at the jail.
July 7 is the target date that Warden John Temas mentioned last week at a meeting of Washington County Prison Board, which includes the commissioners, controller, sheriff and district attorney.
The first week of July was “set by a team of individuals looking at a logistical list on how they’re going to move forward,” Temas said. “It is fluid.”
He explained his use of the term “transitional.”
“The ultimate goal is to get something on the outside possibly built,” Temas said, “one side for public use and the other that is secure to be used by law enforcement.”
A booking center at the jail will mean that during hours when magistrates’ offices are not open to the public, police will be able to bring prisoners to the jail “and get back out on the streets and protect the public,” Temas said, rather than guarding prisoners until a district judge is available to arraign them and set bond.
The implementation of a booking center at the jail would allow newly charged defendants to be fingerprinted at a secure location before they are incarcerated and without having to be transported at another time from the correctional facility for booking, or before they post bond and are released.
The county has a booking office in the old jail, now the Family Court Center, that is open from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday, Wednesday and Friday, until 8 p.m. Tuesday and Thursday and 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday.
The center in Family Court will continue to operate once the booking center at the jail opens at the correctional facility across the West Cherry Avenue plaza from the courthouse complex.
Although the booking of prisoners includes fingerprinting, duties that will be handled solely by the Family Court Center include registering offenders under the state’s Megan’s Law or the federal Sexual Offender Registration & Notification Act, sometimes called the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act of 2006, which establishes a comprehensive national sex offender registration system that aims to close potential gaps and loopholes that existed under prior laws and to strengthen the nationwide network of sex offender registrations, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.
It is, for example, a federal crime for an individual to knowingly fail to register or update his or her registration as required.
According to the warden’s report presented to the prison board, as of Feb. 28 the jail had 339 inmates, 285 male and 54 female.
The figures include 179 men awaiting trial or sentencing and 42 women in the same category.