Bureau County getting a new law enforcement center

PRINCETON, Ill. — The Bureau County Sheriff’s Department is finally getting a new law enforcement center in Princeton, Illinois as their current jail is inadequate.

Sheriff Jim Reed says the county jail is outdated. How to pay for upgrades has been at the center of debate for nearly a decades. Sheriff Reed and his staff got together with county board members to come up with a plan to fund the new law enforcement center.

He says the working conditions for his deputies and the safety for both them and the inmates were determining factors in getting a new center built.

“We had a variety of problems,” Sheriff Jim Reed said. “We did have problems with the plumbing. Of course inmates were flushing things down and the sewer was backing up and several times we had investigators and officers who basically had raw sewage on their desk and filing cabinets in the basement.”

In addition, County board member, Keith Cain, adds that the county simply out grew the current jail.

“Well, as we all know crime has changed,” Keith Cain said. “You have as many females as you do as males. You have to keep everybody separated now as far as the two different sexes plus the up keep of the old jail was just getting too expensive so we decided we would have to get into this.”

The Board Chair, Marshann Entwhistle says she believes there were issues with the current jail when it was first built many years ago.

“Since I’ve been on the board it’s been an ongoing problem,” Entwhistle said. “It’s been deficiencies in that jail i think since day once since it was built.”

Marshann Entwhistle says they’ve tried to do something over the last decade but finding the money to fund a new law enforcement center was hard.

“It made it difficult because we just didn’t know how we were going to finance the project (and) where were we going to put the project,” Entwhistle, said. “We looked at doing containers where we could bring in containers and set them in place Where were we going to do it? Did we want to keep it close to the court house, yes we did but that presented some problems there.”

Finally they found a location near the interstate which once housed the local paper and the location was perfect for the department’s needs.

“There’s a lot of real estate out there that we can work with,” Sheriff Jim Reed said. “The thing about this plan is that is perfect for we need and it’ll be there for some years to come if we need to add on.”

The county is expecting to break ground early next month, weather permitting.