Photo Gallery | First look at new DeSoto County Jail

Monday, December 3rd, 2012, 12:31am

The new DeSoto County Jail

will begin moving inmates in on Monday.

The female inmates will be the first to move.

They will be housed separately from the male inmates, who should be moved in by the beginning of next year.

At the new jail

inmates will not live in individual cells. Pods will house inmates in groups of 20 to 30 in dormitory style.

"It's about $30,000 to build per bed

to build a housing unit like this. Cells is about $75,000 a bed," said DeSoto County Jail Administrator Chad Wicker.

The new jail will be the first in Mississippi

to use video visitation. Wicker says it is safer for deputies and inmates.

Visitors

will have to go to the old jail where they will be able to video chat with prisoners.

"The family has a better chance to come visit them

because we're not going to have time restraints or anything like that," explained Wicker.

There are more than 125 cameras

that record from all angles in the new jail, and the surveillance video captured from the device can be saved for 140 days.

"The booking area actually has

an area where they can do their process without having to worry about being attacked or anything like that," said Wicker.

The public is invited to get their first look

at the jail at an open house Saturday, December 1, between 1 p.m. and 5 p.m. in Hernando, MS.

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