David Yaffe-Bellany Photo
Commission Chairman Dawson at Friday’s emergency meeting.
The city is looking to find an outside company to manage the temporary detention center at 1 Union Ave., even as police prepare to take over management of the facility next week.
The Police Board of Commissioners voted at a special meeting Friday to approve an order allowing cops to take over the lock-up — which was run by judicial marshals for more than two decades before state budget cuts led to a decision to return it to city control — at 11 p.m. next Thursday.
City officials Friday also agreed on a long-term alternative. They plan to issue a request for qualifications (RFQ) from contractors interested in helping run the lock-up, where arrestees are jailed before appearing in court.
Assistant Police Chief Anthony Campbell said the city hopes that alternative would cost less than the $1.75-$2 million projected annual cost — not to mention the strain on the department — of having cops operate the lock-up long-term.
He added that that the process of finding outside help could take months or years, as the state vets candidates for “liability issues as well as perceived abuse issues” that are especially relevant when it comes to prison contractors.
A group of 40 cops are currently being trained to manage the lock-up. Six officers will work there per shift.
“It puts a strain on our ability to properly patrol the streets of New Haven,” Campbell said.
The city turned over “prisoner management” responsibilities to the state Judicial Department in 1993.
Since the spring, the Police Department has evaluated — and subsequently discarded — several alternatives to managing the lock-up itself.
First, police officials pleaded with the state for a six-month reprieve in the transfer. No luck.
The police also looked at using the state’s New Haven Correction Center on Whalley Avenue as a substitute lock-up. That proposal quickly fell through, partly because the correction center does not accommodate female prisoners.
Police Chief Dean Esserman also met with his counterparts in Hamden and West Haven earlier this month to explore a sharing arrangement in which New Haven cops would transport arrestees to excess space in those towns’ detention centers.
But the plan hit a major obstacle: the judicial marshals will not pay to transport arrestees from one town’s lock-up to another town’s courthouse. And according to Campbell, the legal implications of the sharing arrangement promised “a logistical nightmare.”
“The timeline is imprecise, because the RFQ take time to get a response,” said mayoral spokesman Laurence Grotheer. “But as of 12:01 next Friday morning, the detention center will be staffed to accommodate those who are arrested.”
The police commissioners approved two general orders related to the detention center — one concerning regulations for the lock-up and another requiring training officers about the federal Prison Rape Elimination Act — at the special meeting Friday morning. Commission Chairman Anthony Dawson emphasized that the orders are subject to change.
“We don’t know what’s gonna happen downstairs,” Dawson said. “It’s been a long time since we were in that business.”