Its Jail Full, Sullivan County Seeking Alternatives

In-jail hearings, day-reporting among programs used to reduce stress on jail

Every weekday and some weekends, you can find Bill Watson in jail.

But he’s not serving time and adding to the inmate population.

He’s a Sullivan County General Sessions Court judge who is trying to relieve overcrowding at the county jail.

“I go to jail most every morning at 8:15 a.m., not to lock people up, but to let as many people out as possible,” Watson said, explaining why he arraigns people and sets bond at the lockup.

That’s one example local officials give of ways they are trying to minimize jail overcrowding, short of expanding the county jail or the state building more prisons.

In August, the jail averaged 477 inmates, — significantly more than its capacity of 383.

But Watson said that without his visits, the overcrowding would be worse.

On Labor Day, the judge said he arraigned and set bonds so 16 people could get out of jail.

Another weapon against jail overcrowding is a new day-reporting program touted by Sheriff Wayne Anderson and General Sessions Judge Klyne Lauderback.

In the program, inmates not considered violent are allowed to live at home and report to the jail each morning to work.

For 2003-04, the program had 211 inmates who worked 3,375 days. They do jobs like cleaning county buildings and mowing grass on county property.

The inmates are mostly short-term and the county doesn’t receive any state money for housing them.

The program, according to the sheriff, saved the county more than $101,000 in housing costs for 2003-04.

That’s based on each inmate costing the county about $32 a day, the amount Anderson said the state pays Sullivan for housing state inmates.

“It’s worked out very well,” Lauderback said. “The biggest problem on that program is there’s not enough manpower in the Sheriff’s Office to supervise more.”

Other actions county officials are taking to relieve overcrowding:

■ Giving probation rather than jail time to first-time offenders, although Assistant District Attorney General Rebecca Davenport said some people fail to meet probation requirements and end up serving their original sentences and extra time for breaking probation.

■ Initiating a new drug court program, funded by a federal grant. It will divert people headed to jail with serious addictions to an intensive drug treatment program that includes drug counseling and weekly visits to a judge.

Lauderback said the program, which will launch soon, has proved effective across the nation and is supported by the U.S. Department of Justice.

■ Examining the possibility of a regional jail for Northeast Tennessee as recommended by the 2008 state report called The State of Tennessee’s Jails.

Anderson said he would like to give the three regional jails in far Southwest Virginia some time to see how well they work.

Washington County, Tenn., Mayor George Jaynes said he believes the transport distances and larger numbers of inmates in Sullivan and Washington jails would make a regional jail more attractive to smaller counties.

Steven Ingley, executive director of the Maryland-based American Jail Association, said that West Virginia is moving toward nine regional jails statewide, while half of the counties in Virginia are involved in regional jail projects.

He pointed out that Virginia matches local funding dollar-for-dollar for regional jails. Tennessee does not.

The county could sue Tennessee to take its prisoners. On average in August, one in four of the Sullivan County jail’s inmates were supposed to be in state custody.

The state’s four largest counties — Shelby, Davidson, Hamilton and Knox – sued the state because of overcrowding.

As a settlement, the state agreed to take more of its prisoners from those counties, according to a 2003 state report.