Jail move was smooth

By Dan Nienaber
The Free Press

MANKATO June 29, 2009 09:39 pm

— Even though weekend visits weren’t allowed and one less hot meal was served to inmates, jail authorities said a move to the Blue Earth County Justice Center went well Saturday.
It took fewer than nine hours to move 57 inmates from the old Law Enforcement jail to the new jail about three miles away, said Paul Bogenschutz, jail administrator. The move started at 6 a.m., after a hot breakfast was served at 5 a.m., and continued until about 2:30 p.m.
“We told the inmates the day we were moving, but we didn’t tell them how or when,” Bogenschutz said. “People who had done this before told us we should keep inmates in the loop so they weren’t hostile.
“It was a good move. I told staff for weeks in advance, if we didn’t have a death, if we didn’t have an escape and we didn’t have a riot, we were doing good.”
There weren’t even any small fights or minor safety concerns, Bogenschutz said.
Two transport cars were used to transfer inmates from the old jail to the new jail. They were taken three at a time every 30 minutes.
Once they arrived at the jail, they were photographed, brought to a shower and issued a clean jail jumpsuit. Personal items inmates brought from the old jail were searched before being allowed into the new jail.
A sack lunch and a sack supper were served. The hassles that come with any move weren’t welcomed, but many inmates were happy to be in a new, modern facility, Bogenschutz said.
No inmates were able to call friends or family Saturday to give out details about the move because the telephone lines already had been disconnected. The lines had to be shut down because the same inmate telephone numbers were being used at the new jail, so they were able to call friends and family to tell them they had been moved after the fact.
The jail processing software is not new; it’s the same software staff had been trained on and using for months.
There have been some minor functional problems in the jail, however. As examples, Bogenschutz said there was a light that didn’t work and a toilet that wouldn’t flush. But there were no problems that endangered public safety or created an unhealthy environment for inmates, he said.
There were also some first-day employee jitters Monday. There was a shift change after the weekend and those working were spending their first day in the jail with inmates.
“Even though the inmates had been in the jail all weekend, this was their first live day running equipment and that sort of thing,” Bogenschutz said, adding that everyone looked confident and calm by the end of the day.