“We run a good jail,” Sheriff Shane Johnson said. “There’s no question that we’ll do a great job.”
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Lincoln County Justice Center in Kemmerer
At the Lincoln County Commissioners Meeting on Tuesday, Jan. 23, Lincoln County Sheriff Shane Johnson informed the commissioners and the public that 24 state inmates will now join the other occupants at the Justice Center in Kemmerer.
Sheriff Johnson said the inmates will be here for a predetermined six-month period.
“This is a trial period for both the state of Wyoming and for Lincoln County to see how this arrangement goes,” Johnson said.
The prisoners will be transferred to Kemmerer on Thursday, Jan. 25, from a state facility in Torrington.
“The one big up side of this is the revenue it will bring in for Lincoln County,” Johnson said. “We’re talking $55 per inmate per day.”
“Basically it’s a contract where the state pays us to hold the inmates,” Johnson told the Gazette.
Johnson said the new population of inmates was also an opportunity for the Justice Center to streamline costs, such as meals, by utilizing the open space they already have.
The sheriff said the 24 new inmates are all male and have been housed together previously.
The new inmates are also not discipline problems and do not have extreme health issues, according to the state.
Johnson said any housing of state inmates after the original six-month period will depend largely on the state’s upcoming budget decisions.
“The state is having structural issues in the Rawlins prison,” Johnson said. “They’re running out of bed space.”
Johnson said, if at all possible, the state of Wyoming does not want to farm out those inmates in the future, because it’s cheaper for them to keep them in state facilities.
“There are no quick fixes to those structural and space issues,” Johnson said. “If they needed to do it again in the future, we are definitely a viable option as far as space.”
Johnson told the Gazette that the new inmates will double the population in the Justice Center.
“It’s a little different because these guys are all convicted felons,” Johnson said. “It’s not like our current population which is usually people who stay for a night or wait for trial and then we never see them again.”
The sheriff said the Justice Center staff is aware that they will need to be “on their toes” with the new inmate population, and that it will be a transition, but he has confidence that things will go smoothly.
“We run a good jail,” Johnson said. “There’s no question that we’ll do a great job.”
Johnson told the county commissioners at the meeting that he will work with County Treasurer Jerry Greenfield to keep the commissioners up to date on how the new inmate population affects the budget and daily operations of the Justice Center.
