WICHITA COUNTY (KFDX/KJTL) — Delays have hampered the Wichita County Sheriff’s Office from moving inmates over to the new law enforcement center for months. but now they’re one step closer after passing a state inspection Wednesday.
Officials will tell you, the new Law Enforcement Center has been a long time coming.
“It’s just surreal that we’re standing in a building already, it’s just a three or four year period just to get from the talks to it’s actually going to happen,” Sheriff David Duke said.
Unexpected roadblocks have delayed the Wichita County Sheriff’s Office from moving inmates over to the brand new facility.
“A lot of hours every week so a lot of people don’t realize the size of the project this is for the county to take, and everybody involved did their part to get where we are now with the jails 99.9% completed with everything,” Duke said.
Not just Sheriff Duke and his team, but for precinct one commissioner Mark Beauchamp and the county too.
“We want to make sure before we put a single inmate in that everything is perfect and set exactly to standards, which it is now, now we just got to make that move into,” Beauchamp said.
And almost two months since they failed their first Texas Commission on Jail Standards inspection, they now have the green light but they won’t be rushing in.
“It’s still a process to get moved in, just like it was a process to get to this date, there are some things still yet to be done but the sheriff’s office is working on those plans and will begin to moved accordingly,” Beauchamp said.
Next, it’s all in-house, installing vending, mattresses, and small equipment, making sure everything is just right, so this building can last the long haul.
“The basic structure of everything, the cells and the way their built, it’s not going to go away, I mean look at the titanic, it’s sitting there and it’s still steel ship just sitting there so this will still be steal bars and steel walls and the facility that it is 100 years from now pretty easy,” Duke said.
Making it safer for employees and inmates soon, for the next century.
Of course for security and safety reasons, they won’t be announcing when everything is all done and they have moved inmates over.