Video Story
Watch VideoMetro jail remodel nearly complete
Bill Folsom
The bars are gone from downtown Colorado Springs—the bars from the old metro jail. Within the next couple of months the jail will serve a new purpose, housing low-risk work release inmates.
It's a plan created by Sheriff Terry Makita to keep the work release program that was suspended because of budget issues in El PasoCounty. The metro jail was sitting unused because it no longer met safety codes and it was too expensive to upgrade the high security facility. Taking out the bars for a low risk facility is possible in part because of a creative construction plan. Demolition done by inmates saved hundreds of thousands of dollars according to project managers. Other cost savings measures include things like recycling all the old bars. "It was a huge undertaking. We estimated we've taken over three hundred tons of steel out of this facility." according to Commander Mitch Lincoln who is supervising the remodel for the Sheriff’s office. He says, “We’ve gotten about sixty-thousand in recycle cost for the steel.”
"This will be paid for by the people who use the facility." says Sheriff Terry Makita. If things go as planned with the newly remodeled jail, work release will create an avenue for paying back society that will also pay for itself. There are fines and fees paid by inmates in the work release program. That money will pay back the county for the money it essentially loaned for the remodeling. It should also pay for operating expenses.
