Jail 'disgusting'

Iberia Parish Sheriff Louis Ackal has one word to describe the present condition of the Iberia Parish Jail — “disgusting.”

In what Ackal described as an “expose,” the recently inaugurated sheriff gave a media tour Tuesday of the Iberia Parish Jail, with New Iberia Mayor Hilda Curry and members of the City Council and Iberia Parish Council taking part.

“I want the public to see what I’ve inherited,” Ackal said. “There was $860,000 that was supposed to go towards the jail. Where did it all go?”

The tour first visited the facility control room, which is in need of a new electronic control board. Ackal then showed visitors the areas where prisoners live, including E-Pod, regarded as the most dangerous section. It has rusty doors, damaged windows with stress cracks in the glass, graffiti, flies and other damage. Improvements are also needed in the laundry room as well as the plumbing and sewage systems.

“It’s got to be clean because we house people here,” Ackal said. “This place has not been maintained, and I’m damned aggravated about it. These conditions represent a security risk.”

Ackal also showed visitors exterior security cameras that do not work, interior ones that cannot record and an exterior door to the jail’s recreation yard with a large rusted opening at the bottom.

“That door is what keeps the prisoners in,” Ackal said. “We’ve had one prisoner in here for four years without trial, and another prisoner for two years. This is unfair to taxpayers.”

Ackal said that the jail, which was first opened in the early 1990s, has a capacity of 260 inmates but a present population of 469 inmates. Ackal added that the sheriff’s office presently has about 11,000 unserved warrants.

Although he estimates all the necessary jail repairs will cost between $1 million and $2 million, Ackal was less certain as to how long such repairs would take, adding repairs made so far have been absorbed into the current sheriff’s office operating budget.

With respect to any investigation into why the jail is in such a condition, Ackal effectively ruled out a grand jury taking on the task.

“Grand juries don’t inspect prisons anymore,” Ackal said. “However, there was a lot of shredding that began as soon as I won the election that went on seven days a week at the sheriff’s department. I got that directly from sheriff’s department employees.”

Ackal also showed visitors both the motor vehicle and boat fleets of the sheriff’s department, many of which are unfit for the road or the water, in his view. He also showed visitors a guard tower with stairs so rotted they cannot be used.

New Iberia City Councilman David Broussard said the conditions he saw were deplorable.

“I think these inmates can get a paintbrush and do some work,” Broussard said.

Parish Councilman Lloyd Brown said he thought the jail conditions were “horrible,” and his fellow council member Maggie Daniels expressed concern for female inmates.

“If it’s this bad for the men, it must be worse for the women,” Daniels said.

Ackal said he plans to set up a garden just outside the jail building where inmates can work. “They used to not want to work in the garden because they would get their tennis shoes dirty,” he said. “My advice — take ‘em off.”