The new Shelby Justice Center prepared for its opening next week by holding mock arrests and processing on Saturday. Volunteers cheerfully endured the intake procedure and were escorted to cells, thereby helping train new officers and providing a refresher course for veteran officers. The event also helped officials discern any issues that needed addressing before the opening.
Shelby Police Chief Charles Roub noted, “Training the way you operate is the best way to train. You have a tendency to remember things better and it’s a better learning experience.”
He explained that the new facility offered all new equipment. “Everything here is new or is being used in a different way than it ever has,” he added.
Roub said the run-through helped him discover two doors that were malfunctioning and would need to be reprogrammed.
Roub noted another advantage of the mock processing, “Most people have no understanding of what it takes to operate a jail, or what it takes to bring a person from outside inside and lock them up. It’s a 45 minute to an hour process to get someone off the street and into a jail cell.”
Processing would normally begin when an offender is brought into the sally port in the police vehicle. They are then escorted inside where their possessions are placed in a container and then locked away. The jail provides everything the prisoner will need for their stay.
Arrestees are allowed to shower and given orange jail clothing, are fingerprinted and photographed, and identification and personal information are obtained.
The facility offers waiting areas for processing, complete with televisions, though arrestees may be shackled to the bench they sit on, for safety.
Shelby council member Pat Carlisle was among those that volunteered for the event. While her processing was underway, three additional volunteers were escorted to the area, including Patrick Bovia of Shelby, Rich Rader of Mansfield, and Stephen Grinch of Bellefontaine.
Grinch said he volunteered for the event in order to discover if his church, Crossroads Christian Church of Bellefontaine, could in some way partner with a facility to assist people in jail. He noted this was merely exploratory at this time. When asked during booking if the experience was what he expected, Grinch replied, “It’s an eye opener.”
Carlisle has been an advocate for the new facility throughout, she said, noting that she was a councilperson at the time of the flood in 2007 that destroyed the old jail. “When I was on council, I promised the police department that I would do everything in my power to get them the kind of facility that they really needed,” she said.
Carlisle noted that the new facility is extremely efficient. “Every single spot has a purpose. There is no wasted space,” she said. “It is a purposeful, deliberately designed building to be a court, a jail, and a police department.”
The new center boasts such state-of-the-art items as video visitation, digital fingerprinting, and energy saving, motion sensor lighting.
Shelby Police Captain Lance Combs explained the video visitation. “We don’t do personal, touch visitation anymore.” He said a room near the lobby contains two video stations where visitors may be connected by dispatch to inmates. Calls can be monitored, and messages may even be sent by dispatch, to appear on both screens, if calls become inappropriate.
Prisoners are allowed phone calls via phones in their cell area, though they must call collect, use a credit card, or charge the call to their account.
Carlisle made herself comfortable in her cell, unsure whether or not she would be there overnight.
“Every single spot has a purpose. There is no wasted space. It is a purposeful, deliberately designed building to be a court, a jail, and a police department,” said Pat Carlisle.
