A Rural Community Developer's Guide To Jail Alternatives and Costs

Periodically, rural leaders and citizens face once-in-a-lifetime community decisions regarding whether to build a new jail or to pass a jail bond. The study described here identified frameworks, methods, and relative costs for a sample of 8 rural county jails with a capacity of less than 50 to assist community development practitioners who might be asked to facilitate and provide information of use in decision making regarding rural community jails. Parameters from site visits were used to estimate 1997 jail costs and to analyze several local alternatives for providing jail services. The cost variations found in this study mean that a variety of inmate housing strategies may be feasible. The findings support case-by-case analyses by community development practitioners because the relative feasibility for a given set of jail alternatives will vary depending on specific distances and cost factors found in the local community and other jails within the region.