Bibb wrestles with future of jail: to move or expand?

Bibb County is wrestling with the same dilemma it faced nearly 20 years ago: what to do about squalor, disrepair and safety issues at the jail? 

The dismal conditions are described in annual grand jury reports since 2021. At least eight people have died in the jail over the past six years. In 2023, four inmates escaped and were on the lam for weeks, drawing national attention to the county lockup.

The jail is crowded, too. This past year, Sheriff David Davis said the jail has housed roughly 1,000 inmates daily, exceeding its capacity of 966.

One potential solution is building a new facility elsewhere, possibly in the largely vacant industrial area of Seventh Street, where the county owns property. Davis estimates that could cost $300 million.  Mayor Lester Miller estimates it between $250 million and $400 million.

Another option is to expand the jail at its current site between Hawthorne and Oglethorpe streets, an area primed for development that lies between Mercer University and downtown Macon.

Either option will cost the county millions that it will have to come up with through sales taxes or property taxes.

“If we had unlimited money and and and we were able to do it quickly, yes, a new jail would be perfect,” Davis said. 

Miller did not directly answer questions about whether he preferred a new jail or expansion of the current facility or how the county would pay for either option. 

“He has discussed with the Sheriff conducting a feasibility study to determine what the best option is based on current and future needs,” a county spokesperson wrote in reply to questions from The Melody. 

In a lengthy Facebook post in late April, Miller wrote that the county has spent $32 million on the jail since 2021. Miller also wrote that the county owns land that could be used for a new jail.

In March, 5,100 Bibb County voters approved a Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax, a penny-on-the-dollar tax that would raise $450 million for capital projects. Earlier this week, the county announced $50 million of it would pay for repaving roads. That leaves about $400 million for other projects.

“There’s little room for anything else if we devoted all the SPLOST money to a jail,” Davis said. “If they don’t have it with the SPLOST, there’s no place else other than taxes. And that’s the thing — I don’t know if people can stomach having their taxes raised to build a jail.”

Short of a new jail, Davis said expanding the existing one could buy the sheriff’s office more time to work on other infrastructure problems. That could cost “maybe less than $100 million,” he said. “Jail construction is not cheap.” 

Adding 150-200 beds to house “the sickest of the sick and the meanest of the mean” could help alleviate some of the problems plaguing the jail, Davis said. 

“Out of a thousand inmates, there’s probably only about 50 of them that are chronic trouble-makers,” he said.

The jail on Hawthorne Street opened in December 1979 and expanded in 2007, according to Telegraph archives. Its opening put an end to a federal judge’s 1989 order that capped the inmate population until the county made more space to house them. The order was the result of a class action lawsuit in which an inmate sued the county over jail conditions in 1987.

Davis said he is looking into whether that building constructed nearly 20 years ago is suitable to add stories. 

If not, “there is a little bit of space we can squeeze in a little bit more room,” Davis said, adding that the mayor and commissioners who planned the last expansion did not want to condemn part of Hawthorne Street to make room.

“Maybe this mayor may be a little more open to closing that street and adding on back there,” Davis said. “Right now, we have a blank slate as far as where we go. That’s up to the jail planners, the architects and things like that as to where it might be best to put it.”

The county dealt with the same issue 20 years earlier when then-Macon Mayor C. Jack Ellis proposed moving the jail to Seventh Street following a consultant’s study. At the time, Ellis objected to Sheriff Jerry Modena’s request to close part of Hawthorne Street. 

“I hope they move it,” Ellis told The Melody in a phone call recently. “If you took all of that property that the sheriff occupies there, the jail and other places around there, the bonding companies … you could have a real nice developed urban center right there with housing and commercial …  and link it with walking trails from Mercer, downtown to The Medical Center.”