Prison board updated on proposed booking center
A 24-hour booking center for those charged with crimes was discussed for many years in Washington County, and although it again came up Wednesday at a meeting of the prison board, there is no launch date for such a facility.
“We want to see that continue to move forward,” said David Richards, representing Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 22, Canonsburg, which includes several municipal police departments. Accompanying him were members of FOP lodges 95 and 47, representing the Washington and state police, respectively.
County Commissioner Harlan Shober, who advocated for the center since first taking office in 2012, said after the prison board meeting, “The warden and his team and a lot of the officers are looking at what would be the procedure to create this 24/7 booking center. They’re working on how it would fit into the correctional facility, how it would be staffed. We’ve been working on it for two years, and they’ll be rolling out a proposal that we will be voting on.
“The law enforcement community out there, they’re all pushing for this.”
The county has a booking office in the old jail, now the Family Court Center, that is open from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday through Friday, until 8 p.m. Tuesday and Thursday and 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday.
Lawrence Garner, booking center coordinator, said before the meeting that 80 percent of the people reporting for fingerprinting have received summonses, while 20 percent are incarcerated.
The implementation of a booking center at the jail would allow newly charged defendants to be fingerprinted at a secure location before they are incarcerated and without having to be transported at another time from the correctional facility, or before they post bond and are released.
He said he’d like to see the two locations complement each other so only one would be open at any given time.
Even if someone’s fingerprints are already on file, they are taken when a set of charges is filed because the verification adds to an existing criminal history. Fingerprinting weeds out anyone who has given a false identity to police.
Delegates from Washington County traveled to booking centers in Beaver, Butler, Cumberland, Fayette and Westmoreland counties to see jailhouse booking centers in operation.