$5M facility will house federal detainees waiting for status trial

OBERLIN — Allen Parish officials broke ground Friday on a new $5 million detention center.

Once complete, the 22,000-foot facility will house 200 male and female, non-criminal federal detainees.

“Those who live in this community need to know these are not bad people,” Sheriff Doug Hebert III said. “They just didn’t use the right mechanism to come into the United States. They are waiting on their trial to determine their status. Some are released and some are deported. That’s up to immigration.”

The inmates will be housed at the facility from a few weeks to several months while awaiting to be processed, he said.

The State Bond Commission approved $5.7 million in revenue bonds for the project last year.

Plans for the facility include four 50-person dorms, with three dorms for males and one for females to be built on the north side of the Allen Parish Public Safety Complex on La. 26, just west of Oberlin.

Construction on the project will begin soon. It is expected to take a year to complete, Hebert said.

Housing the federal inmates will generate additional revenue for the Sheriff’s Office and provide 12-20 additional jobs, he said.

“We are currently paid $58 a day per prisoner by immigration,” Hebert said. “If we continue to operate this facility like the other facility, that means I have a real possibility of infusing a million-plus dollars into my budget, which means more people on the streets patrolling your homes, areas and neighborhoods.

“It also means the possibility of getting to a point that we have a school resource officer in every school so we can protect our children. It means growing our elderly programs to make sure they are not abused and checking on their welfare. It means those that do harm in the parish, we will have the people to catch them, prosecute them and make sure they are not here doing more harm to us.”

The money will also mean better pay and benefits for employees, he said.

“We lose people each year to the federal government and the state police,” he said. “Instead of begging people to stay we will be able to pay them what they are worth. Right now they are doing much more for less.”

When he took office in 2012, the Police Jury was budgeting $35,000 a month to fund the old jail, which housed 42 inmates, he said. The parish was also paying $25 a day to house 50 additional inmates in other facilities across the state.

Since taking office, Hebert said he has saved the parish over $100,000 a year by modernizing facility, restructuring programs, cutting expenses and increasing revenue. The detention center will be the next step, he said.