Ground broken for $29 million detention center expansion Oct. 23

Jack McLaughlin
HBL Editor
10/24/08

Ground was broken Oct. 21 for a 90,213 sq. ft. addition to the Harford County Detention Center in Bel Air.

The correctional facility opened in 1973 on ground that was once a dumpsite near the U.S. Rt. 1 Bypass/Rt. 924 interchange. It has been expanded twice, in 1985 and 1997.  The current project will involve renovating 14,000 sq. ft. of the existing lock-up and 76,146 square feet of new construction. That will provide room for an additional 288 beds, bringing the number up to a proposed 762. There are 33 beds considered temporary housing and not included in the capacity count. These are reserved for classification housing, isolation and medical cells.

The detention center houses inmates awaiting trial or sentencing and those serving sentences of 18 months or less. The center is the initial entry point for every person accused of committing a crime in Harford County. People sentenced to more than 18 months are sent on to state or federal correctional institutions.

During the groundbreaking ceremony, Harford County Sheriff Jesse Bane said that when Harford County was created from part of Baltimore County in 1773, one of the sheriff’s first duties was to raise funds to build a courthouse and jail. “He became the county’s first tax collector,” said Bane. The first jail was in a converted farmhouse at 45 S. Main Street in Bel Air, where the Sheriff’s headquarters are today.

Bane said he was a young deputy when the detention center opened. He remembered that then Sheriff William Kunkel called his deputies in one evening and told them to call their families and tell them they would not be home but didn’t say why. Bane said that night more than 40 prisoners were moved from the jail in downtown Bel Air to the new lockup on the northern edge of town.

The Sheriff said that in the original planning for the expansion, it was believed the increase in capacity would meet the county’s needs through 2020. That did not take into account increased population generated by Department of Defense operations transferring into the county because of federal Base Realignment and Closure decisions.

Current projections say the jail may be adequate only through 2016. There is no more room at the present detention center site for expansion, said Bane. Planning will begin “in the not too distant future” he said, on ways to deal with offenders that will not require construction of new penal facilities.

“That (finding a location for a new detention center) is a task no sheriff wants to undertake. Nobody wants a jail in their back yard,” Bane commented.

County Executive David Craig said the expansion had taken time, extending through the administrations of three sheriffs, three county executives and three governors.
David Bezanson, assistant secretary of the Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services, noted the detention center has been expanded about once each decade since its opening, a sign of a growing county. He pointed out the cost of the latest expansion is about equal to that of building a high school. Bezanson said new correctional facilities are expensive because they are designed and built with new technology not only to  keep lawbreakers away from the public but also to allow correctional officers to go about their duties safely.

The detention center project, scheduled for completion in September 2010, will cost $29,356,000. Just over $13 million will come from the state and $16,351,708 from the county.

Cam Construction Company, Inc. of Timonium is the general contractor on the detention center project, which was designed by Crabtree, Rorhbaugh and Associates of Mechanicsburg, PA.

Cover photo caption: Joining Sheriff Jesse Bane (in uniform) at the groundbreaking for the Detention Center expansion were (from left) County Councilman Chad Shrodes, Warden Elwood DeHaven  and County Executive David Craig.