It’s not a secret that the Monroe County Jail is overcrowded. The Monroe County Commission has discussed the problem during many meetings and workshops.

But when State Jail Inspector Melanie Gregory presented her recent inspection findings to the commission in a Monday afternoon workshop, some were surprised at how bad the problem is.

“The sheriff and his staff are doing a good job with what they have,” Gregory said. “But the facility is overcrowded and has already outgrown the annex that was built in 2005.”

When Gregory completed her inspection on Aug. 15, there were 182 inmates in a facility meant to hold 138. Gregory displayed a chart showing the daily inmate population in 2004 was between 99-110. Four years later, the jail is edging dangerously close to 200 inmates a day.

“The population is getting bigger everyday everywhere,” she said, “and that’s beginning to be reflected in the number of people going to jail.”

Some commissioners were curious as to how many of the prisoners were state prisoners and why a county jail was having to hold them.

“We have about 70 state prisoners,” Chief Jailer Trent Prock said. “The number goes up and down, but it averages around 70.”

“Why don’t we just give them back to the state?” Commissioner Harold Hawkins asked.

“Nobody wants them,” Prock said. “Every time I hear of a new facility being built, or an old one being expanded, I call and ask if they want some state prisoners to help with the costs. They usually laugh at me.”

“We sought out state prisoners at one time,” County Mayor Allan Watson said, “because the state paid us more to house them than it cost us to support them. But that’s not true anymore. Prices have gotten so high, we’re actually losing money housing the state people.”

It costs the county an estimated $60 a day to house the state prisoners while being reimbursed only $35 by the state.

“A lot of that is medical cost,” County Finance Director Brian Tallent said. “If somebody gets sick, but they don’t spend any time in the hospital, we don’t get any money from the state. We had an inmate who died from a heart attack. The whole process took half a day. There was no hospital time. The combined cost was $60,000.”

Gregory said it is odd how the head count works in a jail. “The number of state prisoners doesn’t count toward your inmate count,” she said, “but since the bodies are there, you have to be considered overcrowded. But you can’t be decertified for overcrowding in this way.”

Gregory said if all the state prisoners were removed, the jail would be well below its capacity, but it probably wouldn’t stay that way long.

“Jails fill up quick,” she said.

Prock said he also wanted people to understand that the state prisoners weren’t hardened cases from places like Nashville or Memphis.

“They are people who committed crimes in Monroe County and its towns,” he said. “Their convictions made them state prisoners, but the state has nowhere to put them.”

Gregory said the overcrowding could lead to lawsuits from the inmates. “You have inmates sleeping on mats on the floor,” she said. “You have two cells made to hold 16 prisoners each. On had 33 inmates in it, the other had 29. The female block is way overcrowded. You have visitation cells being used as holding cells. You have three men in a cell made for two. You’ve run out of room.”

And then there is the problem of standing water in the cells, causing a foul odor. Prock said the water comes  from a security shower right next to the cell that spits water into the inmate area.

“And there’s the problem of the inmates vandalizing the shower to try and get the timer to run longer than it should,” he said.

“I know they’ve committed crimes,” Gregory said. “But I’m not sure they deserve to live like this. You have inmates convicted of everything  from attempted murder to statutory rape living in the same cell. You can imagine what the atmosphere is like.”

There was a fear that Gregory was going to tell the county they had to either have a plan in place for a new jail/justice center within 60 days or face having the jail shut down.

But Gregory said she is on the county’s side.

“You have a plan of action in place,” she said. “And that’s great. As long as you keep moving forward on that plan of action, you’ll be all right. I don’t shut down jails. Now, if the fire marshal was to come by, I’m not sure what he would think of the overcrowding. If he decided it’s a fire hazard, he’d give you 48 hours to move the prisoners elsewhere.”

The county has been looking at options other than jailing people, including diversion programs, ankle bracelets and citing people on less offenses instead of arresting them.

“We’ve already started citing people into court on the interstate stops instead of bringing them all the way into the jail,” Sheriff Bill Bivens said. “We want people to get the proper punishment for what they do, but it is one way of decreasing the jail population some.”

“I’ve got your back,” Gregory said. “I’ll do everything I can to help. But keep in mind that if you decide to do nothing, then a federal judge could step in and make you do it. And if you lose your certification, county commissioners can be named individually in lawsuits brought by inmates.”

The County Commission  will vote Friday on a resolution to hire Cope Associates to work on the project. Even with the plan of action in place, Architect Grant Tharp said it usually takes 3-4 years to complete a new jail/justice center, and that’s after the first brick has been put down, something the county isn’t even close to doing.

michael.thomason@advocate anddemocrat.com | 442-4575.