Lafayette County secures $5 million for jail, behavioral health upgrades

More medical and observation space inside the Lafayette County Detention Center, plus $500,000 for Haven House in Oxford, are the changes residents are most likely to notice first from Lafayette County’s new $5 million state investment.

The county said May 14 that it secured the money after working with state leaders, and that the package will support detention-center improvements and upgrades to Communicare, the local behavioral health provider. On the jail side, the county said the project will add expanded medical and observation areas for people with substance-use, medical, or psychiatric needs, along with upgrades to cell security features, the door-control computer system, and electrical and plumbing systems.

County officials have not laid out a full construction timetable or a detailed spending breakdown, but the funding points to a practical problem they have been trying to solve for years: how to keep people safe and stable in a facility that handles residents at some of their most difficult moments. Sheriff Joey East said the detention center has served the community for more than 30 years, a sign the building has long outlived the kind of routine upkeep that can keep pace with modern jail demands.

The other half of the investment is aimed at treatment before problems spill deeper into the justice system. Lafayette County said $500,000 will go to Communicare’s Haven House, a residential treatment facility in Oxford that serves nearly 500 adults facing addiction and co-occurring mental-health challenges. The county said the money will help with heating-and-air upgrades intended to improve comfort and energy efficiency for people in treatment.

The size of the behavioral-health component matters because Communicare is already carrying a heavy load across the region. Its website says it serves Calhoun, Lafayette, Marshall, Panola, Tate and Yalobusha counties in North Central Mississippi. A 2024 report said Communicare served 2,673 people in Lafayette County in the prior year, completed 654 crisis services, and had trained 12 Lafayette County Sheriff’s Office deputies in Crisis Intervention Team work. That same report said Haven House had 48 beds and served 435 people the previous year.

The county’s own records also show the overlap between jail pressure and treatment needs. A 2020-2024 sheriff’s department strategic plan said officials had already identified concerns with the existing correctional center and future growth needs, including holding cells, mental illness and communications. A 2022 county item described Haven House as a residential substance-abuse facility that opened in 1978 and provides medication-assisted treatment, withdrawal management, intensive outpatient treatment and recovery support services.

Board of Supervisors President Brent Larson said the funding reflected help from state partners, including Sen. Nicole Boyd and Rep. Clay Deweese. Mississippi legislative records show HB 4096 in the 2026 session was written to assist Lafayette County with jail repair and renovation for fiscal 2027, underscoring that the county’s $5 million win was built through sustained lobbying rather than a sudden windfall.