Independence Police

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Independence will send prisoners to a private jail

By RONNIE WACHTER

The Examiner — Daily Newspaper of Eastern Jackson County Missouri

Posted September 24, 2000

People arrested by the Independence Police Department have a new destination while they are in custody: the Integrity Correctional Center in Holden, Mo.

The City Council voted Monday to sign a contract with the private jail, 40 miles east of Independence.

The contract, also signed by the Lee's Summit Police Department, will last for one year, said Sgt. Clay Swatzell, Independence jail supervisor.

Swatzell said that his department had ceased working with its former detention provider, the Carroll County Jail, in July because of prisoner complaints. Prisoners reported assaults and poor conditions in the jail, he said.

"It was obviously an older jail, so I guess some of the conditions were what they said to be substandard," he said.

The Integrity facility also offers an improved inmate transportation system and a variety of rehabilitation programs, Swatzell said. Integrity will provide all transportation for inmates to the Holden facility from Independence.

Independence had held its prisoners at jails in Belton and in Platte and Lafayette counties since July, and has already begun housing them in Integrity, he said.

"So far, I'm fairly impressed with it," Swatzell said. "It's a modern facility, it's more secure than the other facilities we looked at."

Independence Police Chief Gary George said that Integrity will hold males for $35 a day and females for $40 a day. He said that Carroll County held both men and women for $35 a day.

Swatzell said that Integrity had a more favorable system of releasing prisoners. Integrity picks up the prisoners from the police stations they are being held at, then brings them back to those police stations to release them, he said.

Bill Corum, president of Integrity, said it would be less expensive to let a free man walk out their front door, but that transferring released prisoners back to local police stations placed them in a better situation.

"Obviously, it would be cheaper for us than to transport them," he said, "but we don't feel that that's the way to run a jail. We don't feel that's fair to the community or to the prisoner."

Corum said that people released in Holden may not have much money or anyone to pick them up, and would be tempted to steal what they needed.

It is that type of situation that authorities believe cost an Independence boy his life in February.

Kim L. Davis was released from Carroll County Jail and dropped off in eastern Independence by an Independence Police employee. An outstanding warrant for his arrest was overlooked. Davis now stands accused of dragging 6-year-old Jake Robel to his death while attempting to steal the car Robel was sitting in.

"That's one of the reasons we do that," Corum said of Integrity's transportation method.

"We won't release an inmate until we know if we have warrants on him. When we take him back into their jurisdiction, police can run a check on him for warrants, and then they have the authority to arrest him again."

To reach Ronnie Wachter, call him at 350-6323.

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