The Monroe County Sheriff’s Office says current county jail conditions have improved amid efforts to establish a new facility.
Sheriff Ruben Marté and his staff demonstrated improvements with photos they shared at a Tuesday county council meeting.
The photos showed repairs and other quality-of-life changes made since the beginning of 2023, when Marté took office.
They were in stark contrast to ones shown nearly a year ago depicting bleak conditions at the jail.
Marté has said he wants to quickly make the jail more humane, even as the county is discussing a location, design and programming for a new facility.
“As I mentioned before, we hit the ground sprinting,” Marté said. “We want to be proactive and think outside the box.”
The sheriff’s office also said it is currently fully staffed, and the current inmate population at the jail is 250. The jail’s inmate bed capacity is about 300.
Marté latest presentation came the night before the county commissioners extended a legal settlement over the jail with the American Civil Liberties Union.
The ACLU sued the county in 2008, alleging the jail violates inmates’ constitutional rights. The county and ACLU reached a settlement in 2009.
The county has extended the date by which the lawsuit will be dismissed several times in the years since, according to County Attorney Jeff Cockerill.
“Next year, we'll probably sit and talk about another extension, because I do not believe we'll have a new facility within a year,” Cockerill said.
The lawsuit is now set to expire on Jan. 15, 2025, because of the commissioners’ latest action.
The effort to build a new jail was prompted by the ACLU lawsuit and a 2021 study that found the current jail is unconstitutional.
County officials are still researching whether land across Rogers Street from Switchyard Park can be used as a future jail site, despite pushback from residents.
They also have said a new jail likely won’t be built or occupied until 2027 at the earliest.
The commissioners say they hope a site will be selected this year.
