Herkimer County Jail Closer to opening

Inspectors from the New York State Codes Department are working on a certificate of occupancy for the Herkimer County Jail.

Close to opening.

Newschannel 2's kirk tupaj explains why the inmates are going to love it.

Inspectors from the new york state codes department are working on a certificate of occupancy for the herkimer county jail.

Right now the old jail is housing around 35 inmates.

The new jail will require about the same amount of manpower to watch over 150 inmates.

The new facility is all high tech with bar coded cells, and a state-of-the- art control center.

The new jail comes in at a cost of just under $38 million, and with the recent bail reform laws in place you might be wondering if this was overkill.

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None .

None sot: sheriff scott scherer, herkimer county before bail reform we planned on having& we had around 80 inmates.

Bail reform hit in the beginning of 2020, we went down to 17-18 inmates, and now we're back up to around 40.

Plus the courts have people that they have to put in jail, but they're waiting until we get into this new facility.

Once the codes department gives the green light, the new york state commission of corrections has to make sure all policies are in order, all correction officers are fully trained, and the jail needs to be up and running before bringing any inmates into the facility.

The inmates are likely going to love this facility after coming from the old jail.

Sot: sheriff scott scherer, herkimer county the open areas are 20x10 for 4, 5, 6, or 7 people.

In this pod right here you know the square footage is just 20 times that where they can walk around, larger television screens, there's chess, table board games they can play, there's 4 phones in this pod compared to one in the other place.

It all sounds pretty cushy, but the sheriff explained why life for everyone is better when the inmates are in a better mood.

Sot: sheriff scott scherer, herkimer county they're breaking the law, but in our current facility right now with no programs running, no tablets, limited telephones, no visitation& they're getting unruly, so when they get unly it's dangeus for ouofficere sheriff is expecting to get approval from the codes department within the next couple of weeks.

In the meantime corrections officers will be going through training, and the sheriff is hoping to get inmates into the new facility within the next couple months.

In herkimer, i'm kirk tupaj reporting for newschannel 2.> time for a first look at the forecast in this half hour.

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