Macomb County unveils vision for future jail focused on mental health, rehabilitation
MOUNT CLEMENS. Mich. (CBS DETROIT) - The future of the Macomb County jail is beginning to take shape.
County Executive Mark Hackel and Sheriff Anthony Wickersham unveiled an architect's rendering on Thursday of what the facility will look like when it's scheduled to be completed in 2027.
The Central Intake and Assessment Center will focus on addressing the mental health needs of inmates who come through the system.
Leaders believe making the future jail look like a hospital is key to their innovative approach to corrections.
"What we're talking about is that mindful approach towards mental health and substance use has that medical tone to it. In other words, we understand people are coming in with those needs and those challenges," Hackel said. "But when you look at this facility, it has kind of that look to it. But yet, on the inside, it is a correctional institution. It has cellblocks, it has jails, but it also gives that understanding to the public and everybody we're already paying for. Let's make it look like something that we're talking about here."
Every inmate that first walks into the new facility will undergo an assessment.
"If there's community-based support options, and the courts agree to that they don't see it as a danger to society. How do we push them in that direction? And how do we get them in that direction? It's cost savings, obviously, for the taxpayers without having them housed in the jail, but those that need to stay in the jail, we're going to have the type of beds for it," Hackel said.
The new Central Intake Facility will have a total of 303 beds. This is in addition to the 900 beds in the existing tower.
The new jail will have a detox unit on the fourth floor and a medical wing on the second floor.
"We're trying to expand our medical services. And another aspect is to try to reduce the amount of people we have to take the hospital that have issues in the jail that if we can treat them inside that saves us from taking road patrol deputies following ambulances to the hospital," Wickersham said.
The overall project will cost $228 million, with $128 million coming from federal funds, including money from the American Rescue Plan.
There will be incentives and penalties in place to make sure it gets done by 2027.
"There are some things that are beyond our control–commodities supplies, ordered in material; we're still seeing that in the industry today since the pandemic, so we have accounted for it," Mark Deldin, Macomb County Chief Deputy County Executive, said.
Several aging buildings around the sheriff's office, including the "Annex," "Max Security," "D Block," and "Rehab," are set for the wrecking ball in order to make room for the new jail.
The county is planning to invite the public to tour a portion of the "D Block" before it gets torn down.
Demolition could begin as early as this summer.