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NATCHEZ — The Adams County Board of Supervisors and the community are invited to hear the results of a criminal justice facility needs assessment conducted last fall by consultants hired by Adams County.

That meeting is set for Wednesday, Jan. 29, at 9 a.m. at the Natchez Grand. Community members, who are stakeholders by virtue of their tax dollars paid to Adams County, are urged to attend.

The consultants, Detention Operations LLC, were in Natchez during the fall to gather information to help them make a recommendation on what Adams County needs in a jail.

Today, the Adams County Jail houses only trustees and a few other low-risk, short-term inmates. Most pre-trial offenders who would typically be housed in the Adams County Jail are now being held in the Concordia Parish Correctional Facility on a contractual basis with Adams County.

The county’s jail has been deemed for years to be in too poor a condition to safely and securely house inmates and jail staffers.

In January 2024, Debbie Germany volunteered to spearhead a Criminal Justice Coordinating Council to determine how best to strengthen the county’s criminal justice system and as part of that, how to best build a jail facility that will serve public safety and the needs of the judicial system and mental health inmates and providers.

“To me, the main thing a city and county does — the first priority — is to provide for the safety of our community. How well we take care of that priority tells how much we care about people,” Germany said. “The needs assessment is meant to let us know where we have been, where we are now and where we need to go to take care of our community.”

Germany said community members are impacted by the decisions that will be made about any future jail or criminal justice facility in Adams County.

“Taxpayers are already impacted by this. By the standards of the Department of Justice, the Adams County Jail is not a functional facility. And yet, we are housing 28 inmates there right now because our agreement with Concordia Parish does not include the mentally ill,” she said. “The Adams County Jail is the first point of contact with everyone detained in Adams County, whether they stay there, or go to Concordia Parish, which was never meant to be a long-term thing. It was only meant to be a Band-Aid.

“We want to figure out on our own what we need in a jail facility and how to get it. What we don’t want is for the Department of Justice to come in here and take our choices of what we do with our tax dollars away,” Germany said.