MERCER COUNTY Team gets OK to help in jail move

The county must develop operational policies and procedures for the new jail.
MERCER, Pa. -- The Mercer County Prison Board approved the creation of a transition team to begin planning for the move to the new county jail.
Construction on the $18 million project in nearby Findley Township began recently and won't be completed for about a year, but there is a lot of work to be done before the county can move in, said James Epstein, Mercer County district attorney and prison board chairman.
Warden Jeff Gill proposed the creation of a transition team to prepare for that move, and the prison board approved his plan Monday.
Capt. Erna Craig will head the team, aided by two full- and two-part time corrections officers, Epstein said.
What's to be done
The team will do a staff analysis, look at other recent county jail projects in the region to find out what worked and what didn't in their projects, and establish a new policy and procedures manual.
The old county jail, built in 1976 and expanded in 1991, can hold only 114 prisoners, but the county averages 186 prisoners daily and has to house the overflow in other county jails.
That bill is expected to reach $1.4 million this year.
The new jail will be able to hold 265 prisoners.
Hiring medical personnel
In other business, Epstein said Gill and the jail personnel director are working with the jail medical staff to hire nurses or other medical professionals to handle the dispensation of non-narcotic medicines to jail inmates.
Epstein raised concerns about documentation of the dispensation process in August when officials were informed that some prisoners might not be taking their medications.
All medications are prepackaged by the jail medical staff, but jail guards handle the actual dispensation.
That would change, as would the method of documenting what happens with those medications, under the new policy already drafted by Gill, Epstein added.