By MIKE COURSON
Great Bend Post
The "no vacancy" sign will never be lit up on the new electronic sign outside the Barton County Sheriff's Office. But Sheriff Brian Bellendir does plan to update the sign with the number of inmates daily. The sheriff recently shared some of the details about the ins and outs of booking in and releasing offenders, starting with the separation of inmates.
"They're segregated by what the crime is, how dangerous they are, how dangerous they are towards staff," Bellendir said. "You may have somebody in there on a minimal crime but is just a very violent individual, so we will put them in maximum security and handle them differently than the guy that's in there for his third or fourth DUI doing a year sentence."
Just more than 70 inmates were being housed in the jail last week, down from a maximum of nearly 120 in 2022. The booking-in process actually begins outside the jail at the sally port, where staff inside the jail can communicate with whoever is outside. The name is derived from an old military maneuver meant to reduce the strength of an attacking force. In law enforcement, the sally port is simply a way to control traffic in and out of the jail. One door opens only after a second door closes.
"Even if somebody would try to escape and make it out of a cell, and manage to get through the first door, they would still have to get through the second door," said Bellendir. "It's set up on both ends of the jail like that before you get to the outside."
Once inside, the detaining officer is given a body receipt once the prisoner is transferred to the custody of the sheriff's office. At that time, the sheriff's office becomes responsible for the prisoner. The inmate is searched, fingerprinted, and photographed. Bellendir's staff uses two mirrors, each set at a 45-degree angle, so one photo reveals a head-on shot and profiles from each side.
For mugshots at the Barton County Jail, inmates are either dressed in the typical orange jumpsuit, or a towel is thrown over their civilian clothes to cover offensive shirts, or sometimes to protect employers when an employee is arrested wearing the company uniform.
Once the inmate's identity is confirmed, identifiers like scars and tattoos are entered into and checked against the National Crime Information Center (NCIC) database for warrants out of other jurisdictions. That search is conducted again before the inmate is released from custody.
"Occasionally, somebody will be sitting in jail, and another jurisdiction will kick a warrant out on a previous crime we don't know about," Bellendir said. "That makes people really unhappy if you turn them loose and they have a warrant."
Bellendir said the Barton jail is broken into minimum, medium, and maximum security areas. Master control has physical eyes on five pods, or secure areas where non-threatening inmates can be while out of their cells during the day.