Grand Forks jail eyes expansion
Bret Burkholder, Grand Forks County Jail Administrator, explains one of the rooms housing electrical equipment used to facilitate video visitation on Wednesday, July 22, 2015, at the Grand Forks County Jail in Grand Forks, ND. (Logan Werlinger/Grand Forks Herald)
A video visitation station sits empty in a general population jail pod on Wednesday, July 22, 2015, at the Grand Forks County Jail in Grand Forks, ND. (Logan Werlinger/Grand Forks Herald)As average daily populations at the Grand Forks County Correctional Center continue to rise, county leaders are beginning to take steps for a potential jail expansion.
At the Jan. 17 County Commissioners meeting, the board unanimously voted to approve the hiring of an architect who will examine the state of the 242-bed jail in Grand Forks completed in 2006 and determine what can be done to maximize and potentially build upon the facility, according to jail administrator Bret Burkholder.
2016 set another record for average daily population at 198.33 , Burkholder said. For the last six months of the year, the average daily population was about 215 inmates.
In 2015, the jail daily average population was 191, the same number as Thursday's count.
"For the last number of years, I've been watching our population rise and rise and rise," Burkholder said.
The jail had $50,000 left over from its 2016 budget at year's end, and Burkholder asked commissioners to use that money to hire an architecture firm to help use the space as efficiently as possible and see where expansions could take place. The hiring of an architect will likely go out for bids in the next two months.
"Can it support a second floor or expand out to the north, out to the west?" Burkholder asked. "We need the architect to tell us what is possible so that when the time comes, and it's not here today, we have the ability to make an intelligent decision."
From an operational standpoint, there are really only 200 beds fit for day-to-day use, Burkholder said. Twenty beds are in the bonding unit, used to temporarily house those who have just been arrested. The jail must separate inmates by gender and tries to keep inmates apart who are in for the same crime. In addition, those with mental health issues must be kept apart.
The county jail holds those awaiting trial at the Grand Forks County Courthouse and locals sentenced to less than a year in prison. Of the current 191 inmates, 61 are federal inmates held for the U.S. Marshal's Service, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the U.S. Border Patrol.
Those federal inmates bring in money for the jail. Last year, Burkholder said the federal government paid more than $2 million to house prisoners in Grand Forks County.
He estimated the facility had about $5 million in expenses last year and said that number would not change much without the federal inmates.
Burkholder said Grand Forks is one of the only jails in the that houses immigration inmates, adding the number of ICE detainees today are about 10 percent of what they were in 2008. He added that under President Donald Trump's new, still-developing immigration policies that number could rise again.
