This year’s elections behind them, Warren County’s supervisors and other officials are preparing to take a closer look at building a new jail, a costly task they say will not be completed overnight.

“We want to take all the necessary steps so that we build a facility that’s going to fulfill the needs of the community for a long time,” District 1 Supervisor David McDonald said at an informal county board meeting Thursday.

McDonald, who won re-election two weeks ago, traveled to Colorado in August with Sheriff Martin Pace, Undersheriff Jeff Riggs and County Administrator John Smith to begin work on defining the needs and process of building a new jail for Warren County.

“This isn’t a process we want to be going through again in another 10 years,” he said.

McDonald told fellow supervisors the next step will be hiring a criminal justice consultant to lay out a comprehensive plan for a new facility. McDonald also said a committee of officials to meet with the consultant must be assembled, and members would travel to examine recently built jails that serve needs comparable to those of Warren County.

No cost has been estimated and no financial plans or timetables have been set, but the Department of Justice says the average planning and construction time for a new jail is 44 to 68 months.

Warren County officials, particularly Pace, whose duties include overseeing the jail, have said for years that a new jail is needed. The current facility at Cherry and Grove streets was built in 1907 and expanded in 1977.

Pace said the jail, which is funded by a countywide tax imposed by the board of supervisors, is continually filled to its capacity of 128 with pretrial detainees only.

This forces the Vicksburg Police Department, which has only a small holding facility, to ferry suspect and convicted misdemeanor offenders to and from jails in other counties, most often in Issaquena County, 60 miles north of Vicksburg.

Mayor Laurence Leyens has pegged these transportation costs at $300,000 to $400,000 a year and has said he would contribute that money to a new facility if it is planned as a city-county jail system and had sufficient capacity.

During the past six weeks, Pace said room has been at such a premium that he has had to arrange creative housing simply to incarcerate felons. As a result, the Warren County Jail can no longer house women.

Pace has also mentioned the facility’s aged plumbing and physical elements, as well as a “pre-World War II design” that he said potentially could be dangerous for jail personnel and inmates.

“With the way our jail is set up right now, our guards have very limited vision of the inmates,” said Pace, who noted that nationwide statistics show modern open-bay jail facilities are much safer.

In county elections Nov. 6, four of the five supervisors were returned to their posts. The fifth seat, in District 4, saw incumbent Carl Flanders ousted by Bill Lauderdale, who previously served 16 years on the board.

So the jail’s woes are no surprise to any of the group who, after being sworn in in January for the new term will be responsible for finding funds for a project that will likely be the largest construction project in the county since the existing jail was expanded for about $2 million 30 years ago.

“A new jail is going to be expensive but we need to go ahead and spend the money we need to now,” District 5 Supervisor Richard George said at Thursday’s meeting. “We can’t try to spare dollars here and there because it will only catch up with us later.”

The need for a jail is also no surprise to the randomly picked Warren County voters who have been called to serve as grand jurors. In the past seven sessions — four are seated each calendar year — jurors have listed building a new jail with more room, more expanded facilities and more secure lockups as their No. 1 recommendation.

Attorneys, judges and law enforcement officers have said over the past years they would hate to see the jail moved far from the Warren County Courthouse, just across Grove Street.

But the lack of available land in the city narrows the possibility of having a new jail within such a close distance, District 3 Supervisor Charles Selmon said.

Other challenges the board might face include cost and time. Selmon, a county supervisor for 16 years, said financing a facility large enough to meet the needs of the community well into the future would be difficult.

So, he said, supervisors should look to complete the facility before the end of the four-year term that begins with the new year.

“Because we face these challenges, that is why we need to be open to all kinds of possibilities,” Selmon said.

“We don’t need to take a traditional approach to this,” he said. “We need to be creative and simply do what is best for the community. That’s our job.”

Warren County Jail

1000 Grove St.

* It sits on land used for jails dating to the 1850s.

* Current structure built in 1907.

* An annex was added to the east side of the original structure in 1977 for about $2 million. It houses cell blocks and offices of the Warren County Sheriff’s Department for detectives and clerks, in addition to interview and equipment rooms.

* The jail has blocks of cells on two floors with service walkways along exterior walls. A third floor was added in 2002 when the roof was replaced for $1.4 million. The third floor is used for storage.

* Houses 128 inmates, plus 12 in temporary holding rooms.

* Staffed by three jail deputies per shift, one each responsible for the upstairs, downstairs and recreation room.

* Most inmates have been charged with a felony crime in the county and have appeared before a judge for potential bond-setting, but have not posted bond or been tried.

* If space allows, the City of Vicksburg, which has no jail, often relies on renting space for people charged with misdemeanors.

* Funding is provided by a countywide tax imposed by the Warren County Board of Supervisors.