Grand Jurors Recommend New Jail in Sullivan Co.
Improvements Are Also Suggested at County Poor House; Sanitary Conditions Criticized
A new county jail to take care of the present crowded and unsanitary conditions and repairs to the county poor house were urgently recommended by the grand jury of the Sullivan county circuit court yesterday afternoon shortly before being dismissed by Judge Shelbourne Ferguson of duties in the September term of court, now in progress at Blountville.
The report stated that the grand jury had visited the county poor house and found conditions very good in the main building. “The concrete building in the rear is deplorable,” it said, “and we strongly recommend that something be done immediately to make this a more livable and sanitary place. The main building needs some repairs to floors and steps, and the buildings should be painted.”
In the comments on the jail it was stated that “conditions in the county jail are splendid, when you consider the plant as it stands at present, and we congratulate the sheriff and jailer upon the job done with so little to work with.”
“Sanitary conditions,’ the report continued, “should be looked after very carefully, and. we fear for the health of the prisoners in these overcrowded conditions. We recommended a new jail to take care of this overcrowded condition and also recommend that the prisoners be worked, believing that exercise and fresh air is vitally necessary to the health of the inmates. Most of the prisoners are young men and their health should be safeguarded in every manner possible, and every effort made to get them started back to right thinking and right living.”
Following the report of the grand jury Sheriff J. D. Newland told a Herald Courier reporter that in his opinion the greatest needs of the county were for a new jail and a new poor house.
Sheriff Newland said that although the jail was originally intended to house no more than fifty prisoners, and even then was crowded, that there was now a population of eighty-three persons and many times had been more than a hundred, In speaking of sanitation in the building he mentioned that there was only one bath room, it in the kitchen of the lower wing, and that water for prisoners to take baths had to be carried to their cells in washing tubs.
