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Sheriff changes operations

A cell at the Marquette County Jail is shown. (Journal photo by Trinity Carey)

ARQUETTE — The Marquette County Sheriff’s Office has made changes in its operations to limit potential exposure of staff and county jail inmates to COVID-19 in light of the pandemic.

As a preventative measure, the sheriff’s office is trying to reduce the overall jail population by working with the judges and the magistrate to let more inmates out on personal recognizance bonds, which allow defendants to be released until their next scheduled court date.

Over the last few years, the jail has been facing an overcrowding problem, officials said. In 2019, the average daily population at the 80-bed facility was 88 inmates. The daily population Monday morning was just 62 inmates, according to Marquette County Undersheriff Dan Willey.

With the increased caseload at the prosecutor’s office, jail overcrowding and the reduction of staff in both departments per the governor’s executive order, Marquette County Prosecutor Matt Wiese asked law enforcement to “avoid making warrantless arrests unless the individual poses a danger to self, a victim or to law enforcement. This would include (operating while intoxicated cases), assaultive crimes – including (criminal sexual conduct) cases and other types of crimes involving threatening behavior such as stalking or (personal protection order) violations.”

Overall law enforcement should use their “sound discretion to protect the public, a crime victim and (them)selves,” the email reads.

Keeping the average daily population lower reduces the overall chances of COVID-19 exposure in the jail.

With the jail housing a confined population and many of the inmates considered to be higher-risk cases if exposed, it’s imperative to prevent COVID-19 from coming into the jail and having a plan if exposure occurs, Willey said.

Preventative measures at the jail include limiting visitation to the sheriff’s office and jail through a number of measures. These include the use of video visitation and e-messaging, which limits the amount of mail physically coming to the jail and the use of the Polycom system, which allows judges to conduct arraignments and sentencings from the court while inmates remain at the jail.

Fortunately, these were all practices already in place prior to the pandemic, Marquette County Sheriff Greg Zyburt said.

New inmates are also separated from the jail’s general population for 14 days.

“When we do get a prisoner that does come in, we’ve added questions that are now being asked upon intake — such as have you traveled outside of the United States, have you been sick — the usual things that the medical facilities are asking before they go in,” Zyburt said. “Then we’re also taking their temperature. If it’s over 100.4, then the agency that made the arrest has to take the person to the hospital to have them checked out.”

If the jail were to receive confirmed cases, it has the facilities to handle three to four at this time, he added.

If numbers were to grow, there has been discussion of quarantining inmates at the Marquette County Detention Center, commonly referred to as the Mangum Farm, which currently houses non-aggressive, non-assaultive inmates with misdemeanors; or minimum-security inmates. The inmates at the detention center may be released if the facility needs to be used during the pandemic, Zyburt said.

“I just want to assure the families of prisoners that we are taking all the necessary precautions that the governor is telling us and we feel that they are safe, probably safer in here than being outside,” he said.

Trinity Carey can be reached by email at tcarey@miningjournal.net.

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