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This is not the first time that Pulaski County has faced an overcrowding issue at their jail. In fact--it's that very problem which caused this new jail to be built nearly twenty years ago.
(Doc Holladay, Pulaski County)"We knew that the jail that was being built between 1990 and 1994 when it opened, was not going to be large enough to house everybody and we knew that shortly after it was opened that it was going to be filled and that's what happened."
Right now--the Pulaski County Detention Facility is home to roughly 940 inmates. But the problem is they're only budgeted for 880.
(Randy Morgan, Chief of Detention) "The basic problem is we don't have enough jail beds and we don't have enough money to operate the ones that we do have."
It means that every day the sheriff's office has to choose which inmates stay and which ones are let go.
(Holladay)"We call it the a and b list. The a list is like the critical offenses, the violent crimes… those people we lock up. Then we have a b list and it's the lesser offenses, some of them are non-violent, some of them are misdemeanor. The majority we don't keep."
Just eight years ago--roughly 33-thousand people were booked in every year to this facility. But now--that number has been cut to 13-thousand.
(Morgan) "That tells me there's 18-20 thousand people in Pulaski County that ought to be in jail. So we're not providing as much public safety as we need to be."
But it's not just a problem for the general public. It's also a safety concern for the employees.
(Morgan) "The more you concentrate that population with serious violent offenses, the more difficult it becomes to manage."
Especially when you have an inmate population that's hip to the current crisis.
(Inmates walking) "So you telling them how they got us in here overcrowded... 26:48 tell them they've got too many people in this jail."
(Holladay) "Certainly the criminal out there understands the jail situation believe me. They are more aware than most of the general public."
The sheriff has tried to find some quick-fix, low-dollar solutions-- things like electronic monitoring and a day-work program.
(Morgan)"But guess what, that doesn't work very well because they know we can't do a whole lot about it if they don't show up."
Chief Morgan says he needs about nine hundred new beds. But finding that funding is the easy part. The challenge now facing the Quorum Court is to find funding the operational costs.
(Holladay) "That's really where they are.The commitment to find the operational funds."
The only other alternative is the same thing that solved the last problem of overcrowding nearly 20-years-ago--a sales tax.
(Holladay) "We have gone through that process three times now with the jail and we have not been successful…so I'm not convinced at this point that a new initiative would be any more successful."
The Pulaski County Sheriff's Office is pretty much stuck. Even if they got the full funding it would still be 2 to 3 years before the new facility was up and running.
Wednesday night we'll show you what life is really like inside the Pulaski County jail.
The Sheriff's of America need to look long and hard at his program. IT WORKS!
Maybe you could run a news story on Sheriff Joe...let the people of Pulaski County see a few options as to what is available out there to solve the overcrowding problem. I don't think a new "fancy" jail is the answer. Why do inmates deserve a better place to live than the average working person?
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