Bursting at the Seams

Prospect of breathing room boosts sheriff, staff

As saws whirred and hammers pounded Friday, Sullivan County Sheriff Wayne Anderson surveyed the two-story brick building that will soon be his new workplace.

The sheriff seemed pleased with the progress of the new administration building, which he said will give everyone some much needed elbow room and should be finished by November. It is part of a $6.85-million jail expansion project slated for completion late next year. :

But for Anderson, and the men and women who work for the sheriff’s office, the move to the new building can’t’come too soon.

Simply put, almost every department in the current administration wing is bursting at the seams. There is no more room to store records; dispatchers work in a tiny, windowless room with barely enough room between computer keyboards to write a note; staff and row after row of tiny cubicles are crammed into the detectives’ office.

“We are doubling the space we have in almost every area,” said Chief Deputy Bill Hickman, as he and the sheriff led a tour of the administration wing that is still under construction.

The lack of space was even more evident in the jail itself where as many as 550 inmates are sometimes packed into cellblocks designed to hold a total of 317 men and women. In the past, the cramped conditions have led to inmate uprisings and a fire.

On Friday morning, there were 459 inmates in the jail, some of whom were sleeping on mats on the floor in what were once day rooms. The number of inmates in the county lockup was expected to swell to 500 or more by the weekend — typically the busiest time for the jail.

Easing jail overcrowding is the main reason for the expansion project, which will increase the facility’s capacity to 503 inmates — including space for 92 female prisoners.

But the administration wing has to be finished first, since the new jail cells are going to be built where the administrative offices are now — on the first floor of the current jail building.

Officials broke ground in March for the new wing, and it is now starting to take shape. Most of the outside walls are up, Sheetrock is being installed on the first floor and insulation is being blown into the second floor.

When it is finished, the first floor of the new building will include a waiting area for visitors, a 911 dispatch center, the records division, space for patrol officers to meet and do paperwork, and a conference room and library.

And the sheriff said he even would like to find space for a small workout room for officers there.

On the second floor, there will be another reception area, a much larger detective division, Anderson’s personal office, offices for other administrative chiefs, an internal affairs office and an evidence room.

The new wing is perpendicular to the present jail building and will be connected by a door on the lower level, Hickman said. Another door connecting the top floors of the administration wing and the jail might be installed, but probably wouldn’t be used since it would open directly. into the lockup area, Hickman said.

A new elevator will provide access from the first floor to the second floor of the administration building, but, for security reasons, visitors will have to get permission before going upstairs, the sheriff said.

Although the administration wing is the largest part of the project underway right now, two smaller projects are going on at the same time.

On the back side of the jail an expanded kitchen is under construction, as are several equipment rooms that will house computer lines and telephone switching systems. On the side of the courthouse portion of the Justice Center, a new women’s cell block is already being bricked.

The expansion of the women’s cellblock is one of the most important parts of the project, Hickman said. In the past, women being held for misdemeanors, like driving drunk, have been housed with women charged with more serious crimes, like murder — a potential recipe for security problems and lawsuits, he said. ;

“We’re going to have 90 female beds by the time this is complete,”

Hickman said. “It allows us several options and gives us a classification system (for women prisoners).”

But despite the flurry of activity, work has yet to start on the portion of the project needed to ease the cramped quarters for most of the jail’s inmates. That project is expected to begin in mid-November, once the administrative offices have been moved to the new building.

By using inmate labor, sheriff’s officials hope to make the move in a week.

“We hope to move at night for the most part. We’ve got a lot of labor that we can bring over and we should be able to move two to four offices per day,” Hickman said, adding that a crew of about 20 trusties from the jail will be put to work.

Once the old administrative offices are empty, that part of the building will be gutted and converted to jail space, said Major Boda Lawson, who oversees the jail. That portion of the project which also will include an update of the current jail cells that are on the second floor of the old building — is expected to be finished by October 2001, Lawson said.

A new exercise yard for prisoners also is part of the project, Lawson said, adding that federal law mandates a certain amount of daily exercise for inmates.

Although the sheriff, Hickman and Lawson all said that the jail project is now on schedule, it was earlier plagued by delays. Planning for the project began several years ago, and the county initially expected to begin construction in 1999.

Those plans were delayed after all of the general contractors’ bids for the project came in well over budget. The county commission accepted a bid by Crossley Construction of Knoxville in January.

That bid was the lowest, but was still above projections.

Some site problems — including flooding and a small cave that had to be filled with concrete also delayed work initially, the sheriff said.

The project is actually the first phase of a four-part plan that would allow the county lock-up to hold more than 1,000 prisoners. And the high-tech facility would almost be like a small prison, the sheriff said.

Anderson said he hopes the county will go ahead with plans for the second phase of the project — which includes more jail cells and a new medical wing — once the first phase is completed.

“We will be at capacity as soon as (the new section) opens,” Anderson said. “If the county would go ahead with this next phase and get it out of the way, they could save money. It will cost 10 times as much in 10 years.”