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s if the escape of Rafael McCloud wasn’t enough to demonstrate the need for a new county jail, the Board of Mayor and Aldermen’s discussion Monday about the city’s costs to house prisoners in other counties intensifed heat on the Warren County Board of Supervisors to build a new corrections facility.

City officials learned Monday it has cost the city more than $2 million over seven years to house prisoners at county jails in Issaquena, Copiah, Jefferson and Madison counties, with $1.9 million of that going to Issaquena, where the city’s 22 prisoners there make up the bulk of that county jail’s total 33-inmate population.

The city prisoners are kept elsewhere because our county jail has no room for the city’s offenders. And housing prisoners in jails outside Warren County is more than an expensive proposition for the city and the county. It is also a safety and security risk, as Vicksburg Police Chief Walter Armstrong pointed out Monday.

“Anybody who deals with transporting inmates will tell you the most dangerous time is during the arrest and transporting of an inmate,” Armstrong said. “Basically, moving them up and down the road for that far a distance, certainly opens us up to a risk of an altercation or encounter with the people who are being transported.

“The more driving you do, it increases your chances of being involved in an accident. During hunting season, we help keep the body shops in business, because between here and Issaquena we have a lot of deer-related accidents. If we had our own jail, some of the costs would go away or be reduced significantly.”

Because two officers must make the trip to outside jails anytime more than one prisoner is moved, Armstrong said, he must pull a patrol officer off the street to accompany the officer responsible for transporting prisoners. That means one less officer on patrol to protect the citizens of Vicksburg.

Board of Supervisors President Richard George repeated his prediction Monday to Mayor George Flaggs Jr. and North Ward Alderman Michael Mayfield about the construction of a new jail coming in three to five years. That is not soon enough.

George has said several times this is the best time for the supervisors to consider funding and building a new jail. It’s time for the supervisors to start getting serious about a new jail and get it built. It’s costing the city money it can ill afford to spend, and could force the Board of Mayor and Aldermen to take measures that could be even more expensive, like building the city’s own facility.

The delay in building a jail is costing the city and county more money, and as Mayfield said Monday, “These numbers never go down.”