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New Greene County jail gets bigger
Jul 11, 2019 12:55 am
Sarah Trafton reports in Columbia-Greene Media that Greene County taxpayers have been told many different numbers about how many beds will be in the new jail in Coxsackie. The new number is 60. Greene County legislators voted for a $39-million bond last September based on an 80-bed jail. Greene County Administrator Shaun Groden has been saying lately it was a 48-bed facility, but now he seems to have bowed to the will of the Commission of Corrections and increased the number. “A local correctional facility containing only two distinct housing areas could not adequately separate and safely house inmates of various classification categories in accordance with New York State Correction Law,” according a letter from the Commission of Corrections. On July 8, Greene County had 25 males and three females in custody, outsourced to the Albany and Ulster county jails. Several Greene County legislators have claimed it is illegal to house inmates in other jails, yet that is exactly what Greene County has done since the Catskill jail was closed for safety reasons in April, 2018. Read more about this story in HudsonValley360.com.