Location: South County Detention Facility, 1960 W. Scranton Ave., Porterville

Incident Date: 8/28/19

Incident Time: 0900 hours

City: Porterville

Posted by: Media Relations

More than 300 people were on hand Wednesday as Sheriff Mike Boudreaux cut the ribbon for the new South County Detention Facility in Porterville. 

The modern $72 million jail will house up to 519 inmates and was paid for with a $60 million grant from the State of California. 

This is the first jail in the history of Tulare County that is not located in the Visalia area, Sheriff Boudreaux said. Now, with the opening of the new jail, detention services have extended to the southern part of the county. 

“It’s a brand new facility in a completely different part of the county,” he said. “Progress requires innovative change and that’s what this building represents for all of us.”

The South County Detention Facility will house inmates who are on trial at the courthouse in Porterville, a few miles away, reducing transportation time and costs drastically. 

The 100,000 square feet facility has four units branching off of one central control station, transitional housing, a kitchen, bakery, classrooms, laundry room, medical area and much more. 

“What we’re really trying to do is keep people from coming through this door twice,” Sheriff Boudreaux said. “We do realize it happens, but that’s really why this facility was built - It’s focused on rehabilitation and we’re hoping that they don’t see the doors twice.”

Sheriff Boudreaux said inmates will start being housed in the new jail in about 4-6 weeks. The facility should be fully operational within about a year. 

The building is designed to provide the safest environment for both detention officers and inmates with a state of the art security electronics system and cameras throughout the building.

South County Detention Facility

• This is the first detention facility built in Tulare County since the completion of the Adult Pre-Trial Facility in 1999. 

• This facility cost $72 million dollars and will have 519 beds.

• We competed for $60 million in grant money from the state. The county contributed up to $12 million from a onetime expenditure from the General Fund as well as from Capital Projects.

• The South County Detention Facility is a 100,000 square foot, state-of-the-art detention facility. 

• The building has a kitchen, bakery, laundry room, medical area, booking/intake, administration area, and visitation services.  The facility has the necessary administrative and security support infrastructure – all of which has been built to a current and modern standard.

• Inmates have recreation space, storage space for their belongings, and multi-purpose rooms for programming and various classes.

• The building is designed to create the safest environment for detentions officers and inmates.  It has a state of the security electronics system and there are 172 cameras throughout the entire building.

• The facility uses a modern housing pod design, with four units branching off one central control station.  

• This reduces the number officers needed to monitor the safety of the facility at any given time.

• The South County Detention Facility will now house the inmates who are on trial only miles away at the Courthouse in Porterville, reducing transportation time and costs dramatically.

• In addition, this building will create efficiencies in the delivery of public safety services in South Tulare County. 

• Currently, all of the County’s detention facilities are located in or north of Visalia.  This will be the only detention facility in the southern portion of Tulare County.

• The project began in 2012 when the County received notification from the State that we had been competitively selected to receive these funds. Construction was completed in June of 2019 and the State Fire Marshal granted our occupancy on June 14, 2019. 

• During the past four years, the County has taken great care to work with numerous State agencies, the City of Porterville, and other local partners.  The design of this project required three separate phases, all of which were reviewed and approved by several State agencies.  

• A groundbreaking ceremony was held June 8, 2016 and 150 people attended. 

• Because of the great size of this building and the specialized construction needs, construction took 1,107 days (3 years) to complete.  We are excited to provide this critical component for the agencies providing services in south Tulare County.