MANASSAS, Va. — Growing pains at a jail in Manassas prompted officials Tuesday to urge leaders to fund an expansion of the facility.
The Prince William County / Manassas Adult Detention Center houses nearly 972 inmates – all of them arrested and processed into the jail from police in Prince William County, Manassas, and Manassas Park. The jail sits next to the county’s courthouse on Lee Avenue, and because inmates keep coming, it has already outgrown a $2.1 million Phase I expansion that opened in 2008.
Now Sheriff Glen Hill and Jail Administrator Col. Peter Meletis have asked for $60 million for a Phase II expansion of the jail, a supplement to the Phase I expansion to include 200 more beds, and would accommodate the projected growth for the jail over the next 10 years. Hill and Meleits asked for the money to be included in the county’s capital improvement plan for the years 2014 through 2019. The Prince William County Board of Supervisors are currently working on their budget proposal for the coming year and evaluating their CIP budget.
The jail expansion is projected to take five to seven years to complete.
Woodbridge District Supervisor Frank Principi asked Meletis how he accurately justifies the cost of expanding the jail.
“We would have to hire a contractor, who does this community-based corrections plan, and there are some around the state, and they would come in and look at our entire system: the courts and how they do sentencing, alternatives to incarceration…how the inmates come into our system, how long are they there? How do they leave? How long is it before they come back?” said Meletis. “It’s a pretty intense study. I would probably take six to seven months.”
A similar study was conduced prior to construction of the Phase I expansion. Phase II would accommodate maximum security inmates and would incorporate amenities already built as part of Phase I, to include an electronic control room, a video inmate conference visitation room, and a kitchen.
Last winter, a portion of the jail had to be closed because a lack of heat. Inmates were moved to another facility until the problem was fixed, said Meletis. Capacity is such an issue at the jail, Prince William has housed 75 of its inmates at Peumansend Creek Regional Jail in Caroline County since 1999. In 2006, Prince William also sent their inmates to other jails throughout the state at an average cost of $50 per day, said Sheriff Hill.
The original the jail opened in 1978 after Prince William County and Manasass agreed to fund the $6 million cost to open the facility. Over time, the jail has grown at a rate of 25 new inmates each year, and by 1988 an lawsuit was field by an inmate who claimed conditions were poor due to overcrowding. A temporary facility and a work release center opened two years later the lawsuit was vacated, said Hill.
After the 2008 Phase I expansion opened with nearly 800 inmates, the first floor of the original jail was renovated in 2010 but the population had grown to 900 by then. With satellite centers, it’s work release program, and the lowest risk inmates who are monitored while serving out jail sentences at home, the Adult Detention Center manages more than 1,000 inmates.
