To view our videos, you need to
enable JavaScript. Learn how.
install Adobe Flash 9 or above. Install now.

Then come back here and refresh the page.

CHARLOTTE – The Mecklenburg County Sheriff's Office hopes a new jail annex will ease inmate overcrowding.

Jail cells are so crowded in some of the county's facilities, inmates sleep on the floor. The new jail annex can hold a maximum of 320 inmates once it's open and fully operational.

Now, deputies with the Mecklenburg County Jail are counting down the days until the opening of a new 81,000 square foot jail annex.

Overcrowding in the jails means guards have to work harder to maintain security, which can add stress to them and the inmates.

"Bottom line, those pods are not designed for 56 inmates. And when you have 20-30 extra bodies, it's stressful on inmate and officer," Capt. Doug Smith, of the Mecklenburg County Sheriff's Office, said.

Inmates will be housed in eight different pods, with each pod holding a maximum of 40 men. Prisoners will rarely leave their pods, something deputies say will make the jail more secure.

"Anytime they're leaving a secure housing unit, you're going to have the potential for escape," Smith said.

As for the building itself, contractors say the design allowed them to finish six months early, although there were some challenges.

"The difficult thing in the construction of a detention facility is the underground portions and the security associated with it," Andy Locklair, with Hendrick Construction, said.

But it was cheaper to construct a whole new building instead of renovating an older one.

"Advantages of that were having newer technology, newer facility," project architect Paul Bonsall said. "There were some other problems with the other building."