Category: Sullivan County

Another Quarter Million $ to Expand Jail Again

Funds to add space for more beds and to fix leaky roof to come from leftover bond proceeds The Sullivan County Commission’s Building Committee has approved spending $250,000 in leftover bond funds to add space for 30 more inmate beds at the county jail and another $100,000 to fix a leaky roof there. “The money's there. I think we ought to do it,” Commissioner Ralph Harr of Bristol said before making a motion to authorize the project. The money comes from $481,000 in leftover bond proceeds issued and earmarked for public buildings - the same bonds that funded most of a recent $6.2 million jail expansion and provided a more than $200,000 local match for the $1 million restoration of the historic Deery Inn. The committee unanimously opted, by a 7-0 vote with one absent, for the 30-bed expansion in the main jail rather than make repairs and renovations to the old jail annex, which Sheriff Wayne Anderson closed recently after two inmates escaped from that minimum-security area. Committee Chairman Eddie Williams and county buildings overseer Claude Smith said 16 new spaces would be made from space currently serving as the salley port — the area where inmates are driven into and out of the jail - and that the other 14 spaces would be added to existing cells. Smith said an outside area near the booking room would be used as a salley port until the next expansion phase of the jail, a project estimated to cost more than $9 million and include a new salley port. Smith said the project should take about six months to complete and that bunks and plumbing fixtures from the annex would be used in the spaces for 30 additional inmates. However, Williams and Harr said the project was a temporary fix and that the jail quickly could become overcrowded if Tennessee continues to leave state inmates - those convicted on state sentences — in the county jail rather than shift them to state prisons. State corrections officials have indicated the state will need 7,000 new prison beds in the next five years - a need Williams and Commissioner Wayne McConnell of Kingsport said they feared would be shifted back to the county even though the county has no contract to house state prisoners. “We're dependent on what the state does,” Williams said. “The state makes you keep the prisoners and tells you how to keep them.” The current rated capacity of the county jail is 353, but it would increase to 383 with the changes the committee approved. Smith said the jail this week had 358 inmates. Officials said the roofing project was needed to replace an aging rubber membrane roof covered with gravel.

Bristol Herald Courier – …The committee unanimously opted… for the 30-bed expansion in the main jail… Harr said the project was a temporary fix and that the jail quickly could become overcrowded if Tennessee continues..

In a New Jailhouse Now

Bristol Herald Courier – …Anderson said… the addition still wasn’t meeting demand. The jail had 524 prisoners this weekend. Because of the crowded conditions, some of them have to sleep on mattresses on the floor…..

Sullivan Jail Project Nears the End of its Initial Phase

Bristol Herald Courier  – …The county’s construction manager said the project… will lend itself to easily to future expansion…“In the future, I think we’re always going to have this problem,” Anderson said of crowding… Read..

Bursting at the Seams

Bristol Herald Courier – …”We will be at capacity as soon as (the new section) opens,” Anderson said. “If the county would go ahead with this next phase,… they could save money. It’ll cost 10..

Crowded Jail

Bristol Herald Courier – The Sullivan County Jail is so crowded at present that inmates must sleep on the floor due to a lack of beds.

Jail Expansion Breaks Ground

Bristol Herald Courier – Sullivan County Sheriff Wayne Anderson, left, and County Executive Gil Hodges cut the tape leading to the site of a groundbreaking ceremony for the $6.85 million jail expansion project. Read More

The Sullivan County Jail is Overcrowded

Bristol Herald Courier –  Although no photographs of inmates were permitted, the trusties’ cellblock shown above gives ample evidence of the crowded conditions. And this is one of the jail’s least crowded areas.

Packed in like Sardines

Bristol Herald Courier – …Officials are working to relieve the overcrowded conditions with a jail addition… “It’s not going to stop with whatever we build here,” [Chief Hickman] said. “I think we’re in for a..

Jail Expansion Long Past Due

Overcrowding is worsening in the Sullivan County Jail, for both male and female prisoners. Continuing overloads caused by state prisoners are aggravating the problem. The sheriff and county commissioners say they don’t see how this can go on. The year is 1999, right? Wrong. It was 1993. Nothing's changed. “We're sitting on a powder keg” County Commissioner Ralph Harr told fellow Building Committee members last week. He warned the commissioners of possible lawsuits because of overcrowding and even of potential inmate uprisings. Harr is exactly right. And the danger is nothing new. The time to do something is now. In November, the Building Committee approved $5 million in bonds to expand the Sullivan County Jail, as well as another $3 million, all or part of which could help build a jail addition. The money is there. The political will, certainly among commissioners who have looked most closely at the need, is there. And now is the time.

Bristol Herald Courier – Overcrowding is worsening in the Sullivan County Jail… The sheriff and county commissioners say they don’t see how this can go on. The year is 1999, right? Wrong. It was 1993. Nothing’s..

Jail Number has Reached ‘Critical’ Mass

Bristol Herald Courier – Sullivan County’s jail has a capacity of 317 inmates, but on July 19 it reached an all-time high population of 507 — including 56 female inmates housed in a space designed..

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