The annual meeting of the Board of Directors of the Marshall County Holding Corporation was held Monday morning in the Commissioner’s meeting room of the County Building.
The first order of business was the election of officers. It was determined to stay with the same one; Kent Borggren as Chairman, John Zentz as Vice Chairman and Carol Brown as Secretary.
Marshall County Sheriff, Tom Chamberlin updated members on the jail facility. The average daily population numbers for 2014 are down substantially from last year at 138 while the same period of 2013 was 170. He attributes the reduction to the change in personnel in the prosecutor’s office, better communication and cooperation between the courts, prosecutor’s office and the sheriff’s department.
The department is still trying to determine the affect of the new classifications of the criminal code on the jail population. Studies estimate from at 10% increase up to a 30% increase. Chamberlin anticipates a slight increase in jail population while the majority will be on court services or community corrections.
The Sheriff explained that the new criminal code classifications are the result of the Kernan Sheppard Report. Chamberlin said he sees the biggest area of concern is with drug use where many states are working to decriminalize drug offenses.
In discussing maintenance at the jail the Sheriff said, “Things are going fairly well.” They are in the process of changing out old technology and he said, “It’s been seven years and a lot of our computer are being changed out.” He indicated the experience of failures of individual work station computers. Recently they changed out the server which was a major undertaking
Other improvements will be to upgrade software for the Integrator security system. He anticipates changing out 100 of the 300 security cameras in the jail facility along with the upgrade.
Chamberlin is looking at a new telephone vendor, one who is up with new technology. The company he is looking at will handle the video visitation equipment too. The new service offers offsite visitation with a secure website to those who have to travel a distance or are unable to travel to the jail facility would be able to have video visitation through a secure website. Their advanced computer programs can measure skin temperature, voice recognition and facial recognition. They also offer an email service.
The company will provide institutionalizes tablets for inmates and with those notebooks the jail will be able to offer education programs such as GED and alcohol and narcotics anonymous program with them.
