On the Inside: Sheriff provides glimpses of jail expansion

Cameron County Sheriff Omar Lucio gave The Brownsville Herald access to the construction site of the new maximum-security detention center set to be unveiled in the late August or early September.
The new facility meets all the requirements set forth by the Texas Commission of jailhouse standards and will house 356 inmates. The construction cost is approximately $15 million.
“This is a direct supervision facility,” Lucio said.
The new title allows each of the new five pods to hold 64 inmates instead of the 48 regularly housed in a non-direct supervision facility.
Direct supervision means that detention officers will be inside the detention areas with the inmates, Lucio said.
In the existing facility, the detention officers look in from outside of the detention area.
The Texas Commission of jail standards conducted a staffing analysis and reported that the Cameron County Sheriff’s Department will need to hire 75 new detention guards to fully staff the new facility and receive approval, Lucio said.
“At this moment we are hiring, training and instructing those 75 guards,” Lucio said.