Published: November 09, 2007 06:23 pm            

Turning petty criminals into petty cash

By Kelly Young

news@jacksonvilleprogress.com

The people of Smith County convincingly rejected a jail bond proposal Tuesday that would have built a $125 million facility to combat overcrowding at the Smith County Jail. To date, Smith County has spent millions of dollars to transport prisoners to jail facilities in five surrounding counties when its own jail cells fill up.

Cherokee County currently has an agreement with the city of Tyler to house some of their surplus prisoners when the county has space available. The voters’ decision to forgo a new jail will ensure the Cherokee County Jail continues to be stocked with Tyler criminals.

“Our current agreement with the city of Tyler is to house a number of their Class-C misdemeanor offenders for them for $35 per day per inmate,” said Sheriff James Campbell. “It costs us about $3.20 a day to feed the Tyler inmates, and we already have the personnel needed, so we don’t have to bring extra people in to be able to house them here.”

According to Campbell, most of the Tyler inmates transferred to Cherokee County have been arrested for minor infractions like public intoxication and speeding. Anyone arrested for more serious crimes are sent to the Smith County Jail.

The city of Tyler is also responsible for any medical costs that might be needed while a prisoner is in Cherokee County custody.

“If my prison numbers here are low, we will try to house as many inmates for Tyler as we can without overloading ourselves. We generally house between 10 to 20 Tyler inmates a day. Our maximum capacity is 189 people — we had 139 in the jail this morning and for the last month I’ve averaged about 150 inmates,” he said. “I think this agreement is a good deal for Cherokee County, and we try to help them out as much as we can. If I see that I’m getting too close to occupancy, then I will cut back on the ones we take in from Tyler.”

Using Campbell’s estimates of 15 Tyler inmates a day and $3.20 to feed each inmate per day, Cherokee County makes $174,105 in profit each year for housing inmates that the jail can easily accommodate.

“Even if the bond has passed and the people had decided to spend the money on a new jail, you’re looking at 18 months to two years before everything is built and the jail is ready for prisoners. I assume Tyler will have to be back to the drawing board for another jail,” Campbell said.

And thanks to the Smith County voters’ choice to wait on the construction of a new jail, Tyler’s money should keep pouring into Cherokee County for the foreseeable future.

        

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