Parish Correctional Center completes new booking area

• By JASON BROWN
• Advocate Acadiana bureau
• Published: Jul 3, 2009 - Page: 1BA

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LAFAYETTE — While it will not ease congestion at the Lafayette Parish Correctional Center, the jail’s new booking area will improve the process required to get a suspect into the jail.

Correctional center Director Rob Reardon showed off the new booking area Thursday, although it will not officially open until Monday.

Work began on the project in January. The expansion cost about $100,000, which was substantially cheaper because of inmate labor.

The project is modeled after a waiting area one might find in a bus station or doctor’s office and is intended to normalize the booking experience for people by offering them a calmer setting, Reardon said.

“It works all across the country,” Reardon said.

Before, suspects under arrest were locked in a holding cell with other people while waiting to be processed. Reardon said it was hard to know what was going on in those cells.

 With this new setting, the people will always be in plain view, he said.

This will make Capt. Myra Mouton’s job a little easier.

“I’m excited,” said Mouton, a jail commander.

She said the new space allows staff to better attend to people’s needs. The setup and orientation also will answer a lot of the questions people may have, she said.

The addition features an area for officers to process arrestees, four booking stations, a property room, a changing room and an area for fingerprinting.

The detained people are greeted with a wall of telephones and several TVs, one of which is tuned to regular content.

Reardon said one TV features an orientation film that walks people through the booking process while they wait. A third TV offers them information about their bond amount and status.