Last week they approved hiring an architect to design a facility with 40 beds and an estimated cost of about 16 million dollars.
Jeremy Kaiser, Director of Juvenile Detention and Diversion Programs, says the capacity of the current center is just 18 beds, and it's often over-crowded. The center on 4th Street in downtown Davenport is also 50 years old and once was a used car dealership.
"It's been expanded three times since it was turned into a detention center in 1980. So it really doesn't make any sense to expand the facility here."
Kaiser says the alternative is to transport these juveniles to other detention facilities, but he thinks Scott County young people should be housed in Scott County
"So they can continue to meet with their families. A lot of these families do not have the means to travel to detention centers 3 to 6 hours away. So they can meet face to face with their legal representation. Also we do a lot of work to keep them involved with their home schools as well."
Currently about 10 juveniles are being held every day in the Scott County jail, but by the end of this year, federal law will prevent juveniles from being housed with adults. And that will add to the current overcrowding problem.
Designing the new detention center will take several months, followed by site selection and then construction. He thinks it could open in two years.
