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Carroll County Jail to stop accepting Calhoun County prisoners
A northwest Iowa sheriff plans to end an agreement to house prisoners from a neighboring county in Carroll County’s jail — a move that sparked a debate during a public meeting this week.
Carroll County Sheriff Ken Pingrey said there have been a lot of issues with “different offices up there” (in Calhoun County). “I’m not getting his paperwork on time, not getting prisoners released when they’re supposed to,” Pingrey said during this week’s Carroll County Board of Supervisors meeting. “It’s just come time to hopefully nix this agreement.”
Pingrey said the “turning point” for him was the recent announcement that if Sac County voters approve construction of a new jail in Sac City, Calhoun County’s sheriff will send his county’s prisoners there once the new jail opens. Carroll County’s sheriff said Polk County officials assured him they’ll be able to send Carroll County more prisoners from central Iowa once he stops accepting Calhoun County prisoners in January. Benjamin Smith, the county attorney in Sac County, called Pingrey’s move “appalling.”
“He can subsidize Polk County with Carroll County resources, but not the local counties that shop in Carroll, that send their kids to school in Carroll, law enforcement that works closely with Carroll,” Smith told the Carroll County Board of Supervisors.
Pingrey said Polk County inmates serving out a sentence are easier to deal with than the prisoners his facility gets from Calhoun County, and he’s looking to “make things easier” for his jail’s staff. The Sac County attorney accused Carroll County’s sheriff of retaliating against Calhoun County for promising to send its prisoners to a Sac County jail — if it’s built.
“That was the turning point,” Pingrey said in reply.
Smith asked: “So you’re admitting that’s retaliatory?”
The sheriff responded: “Not retaliatory, no. I saw it as a good opportunity.”
A few moments later, Carroll County Supervisor Stephanie Hausman intervened. “Real quick, I’m going to shut this down,” Hausman said. “…I would ask you two, if you guys want to work some things out, do it outside of an open public meeting.”
The chair of Carroll County’s Board of Supervisors said the jail in Carroll was built so it could house out-of-county prisoners, and those room-and-board fees are paying off the bonds that financed the facility’s construction.
