The Sullivan County jail was packed to capacity Saturday with a total of 108 prisoners in custody and jailers wondering where they were going to put any additional adult male prisoners.

Jailers said six of eight adult male cells are supposed to hold 12 prisoners each with the remaining two cells designed to hold eight prisoners each.

Saturday, however, a 12-man cell being used to hold trusty prisoners had 16 men in it and another 12-man cell used to hold prisoners assigned to a work-release program had 14 men in it

There were four women and three juvenile boys in jail Saturday. The women and the juveniles were being held in cells, designed to hold 12 persons each, on the jail’s lower level in an area segregated from the jail’s male population

By law, juveniles can’t be held in the same cells with adults. The Sullivan County Jail presently has no facilities for holding juvenile female prisoners, who can’t be mixed with the jail’s adult female population.

Built in 1955 with a designed capacity of 116, only 88 adult male beds provided. the jail is located at the rear of the County Courthouse in Blountville, and, according to Sheriff Mike Gardner’s Administrative Assistant Keith Westmoreland, “was obsolete before it was finished.”

Westmoreland says he doesn’t see much hope of a decrease in the jail’s population in the near future, and added that, ‘‘we’ll just have to make do the best we can.”

There are currently no plans for the construction of a new jail, although Gardner looked into the possibility of adding a third floor to the jail, and was told by engineers that it would not be feasible, according to Westmoreland.

He added that he feels the jail can handle its load of regular prisoners, but noted that he believes the additional load placed on the jail by prisoners on work-release and those serving sentences on weekends only is at the root of the jail’s overcrowding problems.

“We can’t tell the judges not to put anyone else on work-release or allow prisoners to serve sentences on weekends only. All we can do is tell the courts that we’re full up,” Westmoreland said.

Asked if most prisoners currently on the work-release program, which allows prisoners to keep their jobs by working during the day and returning to the jail at night, wouldn’t be in jail anyway if not placed on work-release by the courts, Westmoreland said, “some of them would and some wouldn’t.”

Westmoreland noted that the daily movement of the work-release prisoners in and out of the jail creates opportunities for other inmates to attempt escapes and also provides a means of smuggling weapons or other contraband into the jail.

Assistant District Attorney General Steve Jones, however, defended the work-release program, saying he feels it allows defendants convicted of minor crimes to continue to support their families and contribute to the economy by continuing to hold down their jobs during the day while spending their nights in jail.

“The people on work-release now were convicted of mostly minor crimes, things which the court felt were too serious to allow the defendant to be placed on probation, yet not serious enough to cause a man who is holding down a job and supporting his family to lose that job as a result of a normal jail sentence,” Jones said.

District Attorney General Carl Kirkpatrick said he doesn’t see any prospect for a decline in the jail population in the coming year. “We’re projecting, on the basis of the number of cases we’ve handled in Criminal Court during the first 75 days of the year, that about 1,450 cases will be handled in that court this year.” he said.

Kirkpatrick noted that the Criminal Court caseload is expected to be up about 300 cases over last year’s 1,100 case record The case load of General Sessions Court in Kingsport is also expected to be higher this year, with that in Bristol remaining about the same, according to the attorney general.

The result of the increase in cases handled by the courts is expected to be an increase in the number of people in jail, he added.

Kirkpatrick also said that if crowding becomes too great in the county jail, prisoners could be transferred to jails in neighboring counties. They just built a new jail in Unicoi County and I’m sure they’d have space over there if things get too bad here,” he said. Sullivan County would have to pay other counties to house its prisoners, however, he said.

Any suggestion that Sullivan County build a new jail will have to come from Gardner, Kirkpatrick said. According to Westmoreland, no such suggestion is likely this year, with Gardner fighting for approval of a $1.3 million budget including funds for more deputies and 16 new cruisers.

The county court probably would not be receptive to a proposal for a new jail while it is facing a school request for about $4 million in construction and renovation funds plus a multi-million-dollar operating budget.

Westmoreland said the county probably could not get federal funds for the construction of a new jail as did Unicoi and Hawkins Counties. He explained that the federal Law Enforcement Assistance Administration is no longer funding construction of jails, and added that the county unemployment rate is too low to allow application for funds under public works legislation.

Saturday, jailers said crowding conditions have resulted in some persons sentenced to spend weekends in jail being turned away from the jail until later dates when it is hoped space will be available. Three weekend-only prisoners were in jail Saturday. Two were women, with only one adult male weekend prisoner locked up.

One member of the attorney general’s staff said assistant attorneys general have been told not to agree to guilty pleas involving requests to serve sentences on weekends, until the jail population thins out.

Several prisoners currently being held in the jail have been convicted and given prison sentences, but are being held here pending court hearings on motions for new trial or probation.

An assistant attorney general noted that motions for probation have been so numerous that the state Probation Department’s case workers are, in some cases, facing two-month backlogs of cases on which they must prepare reports for the courts.

Jones described the jail crowding as, “the result of the crime boom.” He noted that crime is up and so are arrests and convictions.”