In Bradley County, where officials are sweating the next state inspection of the county jail, a recent discussion focused on alternative ways to deal with packed cells.
Overcrowding is acute at the Bradley jail, with 408 beds and more than 520 inmates when the county commission’s law enforcement committee met June 13. The facilities director, former sheriff Dan Gilley, had just resigned in despair, saying overcrowding, understaffing and a laundry list of maintenance problems made it unlikely the jail would get a passing grade from Tennessee Corrections Institute inspectors.
A new, 140-bed workhouse opening around mid-July will help, but with 7,400 or so unserved warrants stacked up and more coming in every day, it isn’t enough to relieve overcrowding, committee members and sheriff’s department officials agreed.
What they kept coming back to was discussing ways to punish wrongdoers and keep the public safe in ways that don’t necessarily involve iron bars. Primarily, they focused on electronic monitoring and helping people charged or convicted of crimes get or keep jobs.
Commissioner Terry Caywood told a story about the son of an old friend who got in trouble and served time for a felony. Once the man was freed, Caywood helped him get a driver’s license and find a job, and he did fine until his work ended after two years.