With a new laundry room and jail cell taking over an old courtroom, the Coles County Detention Center is more immediately equipped and accomodated to handle the overcrowding of inmates as a result of the “methamphetamine

crisis.”

Three industrialized sized washers and dryers have been purchased to replace the old regular washer and dryer that was running 24 hours a day, seven days a week to accomodate the number of inmates, which has tripled since 1974.

The new washers cost about $2,300, which Sgt. Terry Tillis said will come from an account from the sheriff’s department “at no cost of the taxpayers.” The laundry equipment is going into the old judge’s chambers and the old courtroom has been turned into an eight-man jail cell.

The new jail cell has been built as a temporary fix to an ever-increasing problem of overcrowding in the dentention center. The overcrowding is a result of the current “methamphetamine crisis,” Tillis said.

In the past few years, the East Central Illinois Drug Task Force has been working under the project Crystal Clear to wipe out the overload of methamphetamines.