SLO County breaks ground on jail

For the last three years, San Luis Obispo County Sheriff Ian Parkinson has been questioning when the long-awaited womens jail expansion project was going to break ground.

Parkinsons query was answered Friday afternoon, as he and other local officials donned hard hats and dug golden shovels into the dirt outside the County Jail complex, officially breaking ground for a new womens jail facility.

Its been a long three years, Parkinson told a crowd of about 50 people that attended the groundbreaking ceremony. Its not about the building. Its really about the ability to program and change behavior.

The planned expansion includes construction of a brand-new 38,000-square-foot, 198-bed womens housing unit that will also have space for treatment programs aimed at helping reduce the recidivism rate of inmates.

Research indicates those inmates that participate in rehabilitative programs, such as substance abuse treatment and job-training programs, while incarcerated are less likely to become repeat offenders when they re-enter society.

Female inmates at County Jail dont receive one-on-one counseling, and treatment varies at the aging facility because of overcrowding. Areas at the jail that could be used for individual counseling are used to house inmates.

County Jail has an average, daily population of 700-plus inmates, with close to 85 female prisoners housed at the facility at any given time. The present womens jail has a rated capacity of 43 inmates.

We certainly needed the space, but we needed the space to change behaviors, Parkinson said, using the words small and inadequate to describe the current womens jail.

The more than $40-million expansion will include construction of a new 8,000-square-foot medical facility that will be available to male and female inmates and provide additional space for offices, meetings and inmate rehabilitation programs. New programming space in the medical facility also will serve male and female inmates.

The county began designing the womens jail expansion project in 2006 and was awarded $25 million in AB 900 funds in 2008 for construction of the new facilities that will include a new security system upgrade for the entire jail complex.

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SLO County breaks ground on jail