Carbon County is making transporting prisoners to and from prisons and court safer and more efficient.

On Thursday, the board of commissioners voted to ratify the submission of an application for a $15,000 Pennsylvania Counties Risk Pool Loss Prevention Grant. The money would be used to offset the majority of the cost of a Havis Prisoner Compartment insert for the sheriff's department's new transport cargo van. The total cost of the insert is $15,466.50.Sheriff Tony Harvilla said the idea for the van and insert came about after the county studied the issue of prisoner transports."We found that it would be much more efficient for the sheriff's office to have a much larger vehicle to transport prisoners, not only from the county prison to court, but to pick up and drop off other inmates across the country," he said.The Havis Prisoner Compartment insert is a prefabricated metal insert that slides right into the bed of the cargo van. It contains three self-contained compartments for prisoners.Harvilla said this would allow sheriff's deputies to transport more prisoners and ensure everyone's safety during the transport.The commissioners said that before the discussion with Harvilla, they had rejected his request for the van, which cost $36,628.45, and the compartment system. But after looking at things and realizing that a van would be more efficient than the current operations, which require multiple vehicles to transport prisoners, they reconsidered."When you start to think that you may have as many as three sheriff's cars on the road at one time to transport people and you can do that with one, then you start realizing this is much more efficient," Commissioner William O'Gurek said.Commissioners' Chairman Wayne Nothstein said the overall savings will outweigh the upfront cost of the van."It will be half the cost of personnel, and less in cost of transportation with the number of vehicles involved," he said.Nothstein pointed out that the sheriff's department is one of the few departments that drive a lot due to the transports, meaning the sheriff's department vehicles have more wear and tear on them.Commissioner Thomas J. Gerhard said the good thing about the compartment system is that years down the road, when the county needs a new cargo van, the compartment system will be able to be reused.Heagreed that this will help provide additional safety measures for everyone involved.Harvilla also said that in addition to prisoner transport changes, his department is working on updating equipment, firearms, uniforms and policies that are currently in place.