Bell County’s New Jail
I recently joined a group of attorneys and court personnel on a tour of the new Bell County Jail. We were allowed to see an almost 100% completed jail facility, and we spoke with jail administrators and staff about the new facility. My verdict? I like it. It is very, very impressive. It is an amazingly large facility, and it’s only going to get larger when they add the new section (as the need arises several years down the road).
And, yes, I know a lot of the local defense attorneys are upset because there are only a small number of meeting rooms where a defense attorney and his client can have a private, unmonitored conversation. I also think that the video conferencing idea is a bad one (it allows cell mates to hear what an inmate is saying to his attorney, thus destroying the attorney-client privilege and guaranteeing that the conversation will be repeated by the cell-mate at your client’s trial).
However, all-in-all, it’s a great jail and a wise use of Bell County tax dollars. Every Bell County resident should be proud, and ashamed that we put off this inevitable construction for so long.
In the end, I am sure that we will find solutions for the minor problems which we anticipate, and the ones we have not yet realized.
I, for one, would like to see a return to the days when attorneys could drop off correspondence for their client at the front of the jail. In the olden days, we could write our client a letter and the jail staff would deliver it along with the regular mail. I don’t know why they quit doing this, but they should start it again. It allows for quicker communication, and it saves taxpayers the cost of the postage for court-appointed clients. Even better, take inmate letters to their attorneys and put the letters in our boxes at the district court building. That would be even more convenient and cost-effective as far as saving postage. They are doing it already with "inmate service request" forms. Would an envelope be any harder to put in a box?


