SMITHFIELD – The Johnston County Sheriff Office provided a tour of the new Johnston County Detention Center, Wednesday afternoon, to the local media.
Sheriff Steve Bizzell, Chief Deputy Bengie Gaddis, Jail Administrative Captain Mike Carson, and Assistant Jail Administrator Jeffrey Jernigan were on hand to give the tour and answer questions.
The 118,000 square foot facility is located on US 70 Business, near Yelverton Grove Road, just east of Interstate 95. It will open soon, however the opening date was not disclosed due to security reasons.
The new detention center cost $41.2 million, including the land, less than the projected cost of $48 million. It was constructed to house 469 inmates, but can be expanded to house 600 total inmates by adding an additional wing. The laundry room, kitchen, and common areas have been built to accommodate 600 inmates, to prevent any issues if and when the additional wing is added.
By comparison, the current jail, in the Johnston County Courthouse in Downtown Smithfield, is designed to house 191 inmates. On Wednesday there were 269 prisoners. Of that number, 34 were female inmates. Sheriff Bizzell discussed how overcrowding has been a problem for several years.
The old jail, on the top floor of the courthouse, was built in 1988 to house 100 inmates. In 1997, the sheriff’s administrative offices moved from the basement of the courthouse, and the basement was renovated into jail cells to house an additional 91 inmates (191 total inmates). At peak, approximately 340 inmates have been housed in the courthouse, downtown.
Sheriff Bizzell said due to overcrowding, some prisoners have been held in neighboring counties, most recently Wayne County. The new and larger Johnston County Detention Center will prevent inmates from being transported to other counties. Those counties bill the Johnston County Sheriff’s Office for their detention services.
The Johnston County Detention Center will be the new location of the Criminal Magistrate’s Office, which is now in the basement of the courthouse. The Civil Magistrate will remain on the second floor of the Courthouse in Downtown Smithfield.
Some inmates will still be transported from the new jail to courtrooms at the Johnston County Courthouse, for in-person appearances, but the majority will make their court appearances by video arraignment.
Inmate visitation and court appearances will change drastically. Current jail visitation is in-person Saturday and Sunday only. At the new detention center, video visitation will be available, on site or remotely, by appointment only.
The new facility includes a body scanner / x-ray machine to help reduce contraband being smuggled by prisoners. The scanner cost $138,000 dollars and is one of about 20 of its kind in use in the entire state.
During the tour, Sheriff Bizzell pointed out several ways he and his staff were able to save taxpayer money, including the property storage room, with holds up to 600 bins of inmates’ personal property. A commercial bin system would have cost $350,000. Working with Daniel Clifton, Director of County Maintenance, the bins were made by county employees at a cost of $30,000, saving taxpayers $320,000. The Sheriff also saved on the shipping cost of inmate mattresses by traveling to a western NC mattress factory and picking them up.
A new medical wing will be staffed 16 hours a day, 7 days a week, by a nurse. Medical staff will be on call for the remaining 8 hours a day. This was first implemented in 2005, but the new detention center will give contract medical staff more room to work.
A total of 12 recreation rooms are located throughout the facility. The rooms have four brick walls but allow sunlight in.
Photography was limited in the Main Control Room, which has multiple video screens monitoring dozens of cameras inside and outside the facility. It’s also situated behind locked steel doors.
Sheriff Bizzell said a multi-purpose room will be put into use starting in September 2023 for an educational Bible ministry with the assistance of a local church. Participation in the classes are voluntary. Similar classes had to be discontinued two years ago due to COVID.
There is one dormitory-style (open) cell block, a perk for trustees. It can accommodate 40 prisoners. There are 11 other traditional-style cell blocks. General population inmates must be in their cells 21 hours a day. They are allowed out of their cells 3 hours a day for showers, recreation, and watching TV.
“Not everyone in jail is a bad person, they just made a mistake,” Sheriff Bizzell said Wednesday while guiding local media through the detention center. “We still do it the ‘ole fashion way. Call us the ‘ole Mayberry jail, but I take pride in that. We treat people with respect. We don’t have a lot of problems. We treat you like you’re supposed to.”
The state-of-the-art facility features a new radio system to ensure jail staff walkie-talkies can communication with control towers and the main control room regardless of their location. The communication system will also ensure fire, EMS, and law enforcement radios will work inside the massive building. During the tour, due to the thickness of the walls deep inside the facility, our cell phones didn’t work, in most locations.
County maintenance staff are also gearing up to maintain the jail for many years to come. The new jail requires 650 household-size air filters in the HVAC system. All 650 have to be changed manually. The kitchen storage lockers, walk-in refrigerator, and walk-in freezer, can accommodate weeks-worth of food, a monumental task considering kitchen staff must feed hundreds of inmates three meals a day, 7 days a week.
Sheriff Bizzell said 11 new employees were hired to operate the new detention center, bringing the total number of detention staff to 75. Officials could not disclose how many employees work per shift, due to safety concerns.
Once the new detention center opens, the old jail in the courthouse will be renovated, the first renovation since it opened 35 years ago. The renovation should take 12-15 months to complete. Once that work is finished, the downtown jail will be used by the sheriff’s office to house individuals serving weekend sentences, and other minimum security offenders.
The Sheriff said additional jailors will be hired when the downtown jail is renovated and reopened. An exact number of jailors that will be needed in the downtown jail in 12-15 months has not been determined.
The entire new detention center tour took 2-1/2 hours to complete.
Up next, the Johnston County Sheriff’s Office plans to open a separate administrative building later this year, on US 70 East, directly in front of the detention center.
(Johnston County Report Photos)
What a Palace…and under budget too. Bravo.
January 20th of 2025 you’ll need another wing. Maybe 2.
Nah, we elect our criminals to the board of commissioners, here in JoCo!
Ha ha!
It will be impressive if Dickie Braswell ends up with his name on the plaque AND a resident there.
Great job!, Although I have no immediate or future plans on using said facility…. Now we can concentrate on drivers license facility and license plate facilities to provide modern adequate timely service. The drivers license building is at least 60 years old and is horribly understaffed. The license plate agency needs multiple locations as it needs to process 100 per hour to keep up.
What about putting a 12 step meeting in there. Especially for the habitual drug and alcohol offenders. They’ll go to those before they go to church. Some people don’t believe in God, which by the way is very sad. But if they don’t have anything else to do they will go to a 12 step meeting which may very well lead them to God. People go to prison multiple times and come out doing the same old things that get them back in there. Maybe because there’s no rehabilitation offered. If it helps one person from overdosing or harming someone else for their drugs or killing a family due to drunk driving it would all be worth it. And just maybe they could become a productive member of society and be a tax payer instead of living off the tax payer. Not saying they all do live off the tax payer, but I bet the majority does.