Mike Sanders offers a good plan to improve the Jackson County jail
Jackson County Executive Mike Sanders vowed again this week that he’s going to clean up the county jail mess that happened under his watch.
He’s off to a responsible start with a new plan that would increase pay and training for guards and physically improve the detention center.
The County Legislature should endorse the increased spending required to provide better conditions for guards and prisoners. Jackson County already has received plenty of negative public attention because of recent reports of abused prisoners, which the FBI continues to investigate.
In interviews this week, Sanders and Joe Piccinini, the acting director of the Corrections Department, said they embraced the findings of a task force that the county executive appointed in August to review jail conditions. Ultimately, the county needs to meet standards that will allow it to attain accreditation from the American Correctional Association, a process that could take three years.
The higher pay, Piccinini said, should reduce the recently increased turnover rate among guards. The county now offers the lowest starting pay for civilian guards in the area, $11.45 an hour. Under Sanders’ plan, guards could reach the highest pay after a year of service, or $14.55 an hour.
But pay is just one issue. Sanders and Piccinini also acknowledged that the county needs to boost spending to repair the building’s plumbing, roof, electrical systems and boilers. These are the kinds of ongoing infrastructure upgrades that governments too often ignore until a crisis occurs. Sanders and Jackson County need to be more proactive on this matter, and the Legislature should move ahead to take care of this public facility.
Sanders emphasized a point worth more attention: The state of Missouri in recent years has reduced the funding it allocates for prisoners held on state-related charges in the jail. “This is their problem as well,” Sanders said of state lawmakers. The General Assembly must provide additional financial support for counties carrying out the crucial role of prisoner detention.
In his third term as county executive, Sanders is accountable for making sure his administration provides strong public services. In the past year he oversaw a successful overhaul of the assessment agency that was failing to properly provide property values for thousands of homeowners.
Now Sanders must continue pushing for the changes needed to truly improve how the county jail functions.
This story was originally published November 10, 2015 at 4:32 PM with the headline "Mike Sanders offers a good plan to improve the Jackson County jail."