Telling time where to go, what to do
October 6, 2015
Judge rules against HTV in defamation case
October 8, 2015An architect has been hired and land has been purchased to design and build a new jail in Lafourche Parish, according to Sheriff Craig Webre.
The Sheriff’s Office purchased more than 42 acres of agricultural land located on Veterans Boulevard directly across from the current Lafourche Parish Detention Center in Thibodaux for $962,775, Lafourche Parish Sheriff’s Office spokesman Brennan Matherne said.
LPSO considered a number of factors in the search for a suitable location, Matherne said, including the location’s distance from the 17th Judicial District Court in Downtown Thibodaux and the well-known fact that people generally dislike it when jails are built near their homes.
Matherne described the opportunity to buy property across the highway from the current jail as a “convenient coincidence.”
“The easiest place to build a jail is where it is right now,” Matherne said.
The property owner is even clearing away some trees at no cost to the parish, he said.
A team comprised of Baton Rouge-based GraceHebert Architects and Thibodaux-based Duplantis Design Group will design the jail. The partnership designed the recently completed Orleans Parish Prison complex and are designing the new Terrebonne Parish Juvenile Detention Center.
The new jail will be a modern departure from the current facility. The current jail was built in 1968 and expanded in 1977 to house 244 inmates, but has been battling space issues since 1995.
Matherne said the jail currently has an average population between 400 and 450 inmates at a time.
According to U.S. Department of Justice statistics, the arrest rate in Lafourche Parish nearly doubled between 1995 and 2011, growing from 4,095 to 7,431 total arrests per 1,000 residents. •
