4/16/07 -New jail captain sees space, training as top issues

(As published by Cortland Standard, Anthony Sylor reporting)

Budd Rigg was promoted to captain in charge of the Cortland County Jail, and three others were promoted last week after the retirement of the former jail captain.
Rigg, along with Colleen Hull and Richard Barnhart, were promoted April 9 to fill leadership positions in the jail after Roy Lewis retired in February.
Rigg was promoted from lieutenant while Hull was promoted from sergeant to lieutenant and Barnhart was promoted from officer to sergeant.
“This is a good challenge. I’m looking forward to the leadership,” Barnhart, 60, of McGraw, said of the promotion.
Barnhart has been with the department for 17 years.
In their new administrative positions Rigg and Hull said they are eager to work together to increase training for the officers under them.
“I’d like to see a little more training because it builds morale,” said Hull, 41, of Cortland.
Hull and Rigg said they enjoy working with one another, adding that they were both hired in 1995 and they worked their way up through the ranks together.
Some of the training that they hope to increase will help officers better deal with “inmate con-games,” Rigg said, explaining that oftentimes inmates run scams in which they try to resist officers’ orders or bait officers into an argument or fight with the hopes of filing a lawsuit.
He said the training helps better prepare an officer to avoid potential problems.

In addition to increased training, Rigg, 43, of Homer, also plans to address overcrowding in the jail. Prior to his retirement, Lewis was a major proponent of getting the county to build a new jail, something county officials are now considering. HUH? Poor communication again! Hopefully they take our cries for a master plan into consideration.
Rigg said the current jail is overcrowded and officials are forced to house inmates in other facilities because of classification issues. He said inmates are classified based on several factors such as age and sex, making certain inmates a threat to each other.
He said as the county explores the options of building a new facility, he hopes to be involved in the design and location so that the new facility can avoid some of the pitfalls created when the current jail was built in 1990. Check the earlier Bell and Spina studies please, they indicate that the existing jail can be expanded, even vertically (although with a few challenges). I have copies if anyone wants to see them - they are quite good! :-) By the way, who would buy an old jail? Do you think the County could market that like the old Moose and Robbins vending buildings they are considering? Are they going to leave that property vacant, move in the DMV, put out-of -line Legislators or the Administration offices there? The only logical solution would be for the City and County to negotiate for the facility, but we all know of the ego issues there...
“We’ve had a lot of good dialog with the county administrator and the county chairman. They are very open to hear our ideas,” he said about the issue, adding that he hopes a new facility will help his department manage more inmates with the same amount of manpower.
Rigg said he is also working with county officials to create a centralized booking location at the current jail for every law enforcement agency in the county.
“They get double processed now,” he said, explaining that after an arrest the arresting agency books the inmate and holds him or her for arraignment, and then if they are sent to jail, the jail books them again.
Rigg said if the all the county agencies brought people they have arrested to the jail to be booked first, jail officials would book the person, transport them for arraignment and then if necessary hold them at the jail.
This way, he said, officers will be back out on the road faster and the person arrested will not be run through booking process twice.