It has been a little over one year since the new facilities for the Guthrie County Jail were opened.

The open house celebrating the opening was June 10, 2023, and jail staff are pleased with how the facilities have operated so far. Jail Administrator Jesse Swensen tells Raccoon Valley Radio about some of the upgrades that were made from the previous facilities.

“A lot of the stuff that we utilize, we have an inmate messaging system where they can send the request to us and we can fulfill those requests. We are looking into getting some heart rate monitors to monitor our safety cells and make sure those inmates are safe. Just the whole building in itself is secure and can be run from a control center, versus having to use manual keys.”

Jailer Caleb Wulf shares what he likes about working in the jail.

“I mean, we have our security upgrades, how we run the doors, our cameras, and how dispatch can run cameras and doors with us, and that helps us in situations that we need them to. So having that second set stationed somewhere else is different and very nice.”

Guthrie County Sheriff Marty Arganbright echoes the statements by Swensen and Wulf, mentioning how the safety features have been improved greatly for the staff and the public. Swensen explains that there is also much more room for prisoners in the new facilities, and that they’ve been able to house inmates from other jails, including from Polk, Webster, Greene and Adair Counties.