In August, the Yavapai County’s Board of Supervisors voted to increase property taxes in the county by 3% in order to pay for a new jail in Prescott.
At the BOS meeting on Wednesday, Feb. 19, the board unanimously approved spending up to $70 million of the county’s future tax revenue from this tax [a Pledged Revenue Obligation] into the newly formed Jail District’s budget to pay for the construction of the new criminal justice facility in Prescott. The anticipated cost of the construction is $50 million with an additional $13 million expected for other costs.
“A 2015 jail system study by Chinn Planning confirmed Yavapai County’s conclusions that the average daily inmate population of the Camp Verde Jail met or exceeded classification capacity and that the county needed new detention capacity,” county staff wrote in their justification to the BOS. “Further, the Chinn Planning study confirmed the County’s conclusion that the Prescott jail … facility is wholly unsuited for use as a full-time detention facility without a multi-million dollar retrofit. … Chinn Planning’s second recommendation was to add a new jail facility in the Prescott area to realign the County’s jail population with its population demographics and density in order to reduce the security risks and high cost in transporting large numbers of inmates between Camp Verde and Prescott.”
In addition to the construction of the new criminal justice facility, the county has since 2015 been implementing pre- trial intervention programs for inmates booked at the county jail, identifying mental health and substance abuse issues and making efforts to connect inmates to professionals who could help upon release in an effort to cut down on recidivism.
In November of 2019, a team of researchers from Northern Arizona University released preliminary results from a study on the first year of the jail’s anti-recidivism program, dubbed Reach Out. Inmates who participated in Reach Out showed a 16% recidivism rate, a significant drop from the 28% average in the Arizona Department of Corrections, according to a 2004 study by Pew Charitable Trusts. The data showed that from 2017 to 2018, bookings dropped from 9,324 to 8,467, the average daily population dropped from 562 to 512, and the total number of inmate days in the jail dropped from 200,190 to 186,360.
The Prescott facility is planning for 144 inmates, along with all the jail features that are required along with them — intake, booking, administration, food service, laundry and medical-infirmary — with courts and additional support services such as the County Attorney, Public Defender and Probation.
“[It is] not a jail, it is going to be a Criminal Justice Center and is a positive new way of making our Public Safety programs more efficient and effective for those who find themselves in the position of using them,” District 3 Supervisor Randy Garrison said. “It will also get those who need further assistance from either our programs or those of our partners much quicker. It will be a huge benefit to our communities and those who use our services. We are getting a lot of attention on this project from not only the Governor but the other counties in Arizona.”
