The Anderson County Legislative Committee on Thursday recommended a non-binding referendum be put on the August ballot to ask voters whether federal and state prisoners should be housed at the county jail. From left are Whitey Hitchcock, Jerry Creasey, Tim Isbel, Dusty Irwin, and Steve Mead.
CLINTON—An Anderson County committee on Thursday recommended taking steps to ask voters in August whether state and federal prisoners should be housed in the county jail, which is being expanded.
Some county commissioners say that housing pre-trial federal inmates could help cover jail costs, while other county officials, including the mayor, say that they don’t want to get into the federal prison business.
On Thursday, the Anderson County Legislative Committee recommended that the Anderson County Commission consider sending the question to voters in a non-binding referendum in August.
But there are several hurdles. First, 11Â of the 16 county commissioners would have to approve the move, possibly during their daytime meeting on Jan. 21, Commission Chairman Chuck Fritts said. Then, a private act would have to be approved in the Tennessee General Assembly in Nashville by early June to put the question on the August ballot.
The referendum was proposed by Anderson County Commissioner Dusty Irwin, who represents District 3, which includes the Andersonville, Fairview, Norris, and Glen Alpine precincts. Irwin said his constituents live in the district that includes the Anderson County Detention Facility, which is next to the Clinch River and North Charles G. Seivers Boulevard northeast of downtown Clinton.
“I am looking for a far better solution than filling (the jail) up with federal prisoners,” Irwin said. “It’s a fool’s errand.”
The 212-bed expansion of the Anderson County Detention Facility in Clinton is pictured above while still under construction in December.
Irwin said the jail will have a total capacity of 566 beds when the 212-bed expansion is completed. If the county didn’t house state or federal prisoners, then empty parts of the jail could be used for other, better purposes, and the county wouldn’t have to hire as many workers, including jailers and cooks, Irwin said. He said a tax rate increase approved several years ago is being used to pay for the jail, but the county might save money by paying fewer people to work there.
“We have built a jail that is too big, and now we’re trying to stuff it full of federal prisoners,” Irwin said. “We don’t belong in the federal prisoner business.”
Irwin said it costs the county $65 per day to house state prisoners and $70 per day to keep federal inmates. But the county is only reimbursed $37 per day for state prisoners and $55 per day for federal inmates. In both cases, citizens will be asked to make up the difference, Irwin said.
But County Commissioner Steve mead said there are several thousand unserved warrants in Anderson County, and the jail will still fill up, even if no state or federal prisoners are housed there. The state will continue to house prisoners in Anderson County, said Mead, who has objected for several years to keeping the state prisoners there if their costs aren’t at least covered.
“We cannot make the assumption that if we don’t have the federal prisoners, then we’ll save money,” said Mead, who represents District 6, which includes the Oak Ridge City Hall, Robertsville, and West Hills precincts.
He said the choice is between paying for all of the prisoners’ costs in the case of county prisoners, or being reimbursed for part of the costs for state and federal inmates.
“I don’t think we have any choice, but do have a choice between paying all the cost or part of the cost,” Mead said.
Anderson County Mayor Terry Frank said she supports the referendum.
“This is a major enterprise that the county is proposing to enter,” Frank said, referring to the question of housing federal prisoners. “What we’re proposing to do is enter a brand-new business. All the numbers that I’ve looked at say it’s a losing business.â€
Blount County houses federal prisoners, but the detention facility there is already at maximum capacity, and the county is having to expand its jail again, Frank said. She said there are other options that could be studied, including one proposal that could allow Anderson County to open its expanded jail with fewer staff members.
A few commissioners said residents voted for commissioners to make the tough decisions. Fritts voted against the proposed jail referendum. He said revenues are needed to pay for new jailers at the expanded jail; otherwise, a property tax rate increase could be required.
“The citizens elected us to do what’s best for the county,” Fritts said. “We were voted into office to do our job.”
He suggested he’d rather consider housing state and federal prisoners than raise taxes to cover operations costs at the expanded jail.
“I’d rather do this than put an extra tax burden on our citizens,†Fritts said.
County Commissioner Whitey Hitchcock joined Fritts in voting against the proposed referendum. Other committee members voted for it. Besides Fritts, Hitchcock, Irwin, and Mead, other committee members at Thursday’s meeting were Tim Isbel and Steve Emert.
Andrew Howe says
I’d like to see various statistical break-downs of the crimes of the prisoners that are housed currently (County, State and Federal levels). We may find that the jails are crowded because we’re housing inmates for offenses that the county residents don’t, on the whole, feel are needing prison time.
Pure marijuana offenses are the first that come to mind when I think of people in jail who likely don’t need to be The law, and the legal system, does indeed pick-and-choose to a degree what offenders they arrest, prosecute and jail. In the days of Ronnie Reagan and his hard stance against drugs, the people of the U.S. got behind the movement and mandatory sentences went up and the jails began to fill with these kinds of criminals. Well, it’s been a couple of decades now and the people likely have shifted their stance on the issue. That just one type of offense that may contribute to the overcrowding, but I’m sure there are others.
Perhaps before we ask for a referendum on where we house prisoners we should ask the people what kind of prisoners we think need jail time. In other words, we may be having overcrowding issues because the jails are filled with criminals the people no longer feel need jailing. Change the paradigm and we may no longer have the problem at hand.
But it’s difficult to know, until we 1) look at the stats, 2) talk to the people of the county. Right now the question put to us is “Should we choose door #1 or door #2?”. Let’s see if there are any other doors to choose from. Feed us the data so we can respond.
Rob Woodward says
I think the more interesting analysis would be how many people are detained in our jails that haven’t even been convicted yet. I have an friend that just spent 51 days there awaiting the results from his blood work on a DUI offense.
I have heard as many as half of the inmates in the jail haven’t even been convicted.
This whole issue reminds me of a trip to the doctor. If you are overweight and smoke, you develop this problem or that. So then they treat this or that problem with a pill. That pill gives you this or that side effect. That side effect is treated with another pill. That pill has a side effect which requires two more pills. Eventually you’ve spent thousands of dollars and are taking a half a dozen pills when what you really needed to do was quit smoking and exercise.
I think the same problem exists in our jail. We don’t have enough prosecutors, so people pile up in jail awaiting trial. The jail becomes overcrowded so we build a bigger jail. The new jail needs money so we go and find other prisoners to put in it. The other prisoners take up the space and then the jail needs expanding again and we spend millions more. Eventually we wind up with the most expensive jail in the state with dozens of correctional officers, thousands of inmates and the problem still isn’t fixed.
So you are correct, time to reassess and perhaps spend $200,000 on a few more prosecutors rather than tens of millions of dollars on jails, officers and the like.
johnhuotari says
Andy,
I think Commissioner Irwin said there were 92 state inmates on Dec. 16. I’m sure that number fluctuates. Mayor Frank said the number of prisoners is hovering around 315 per day.
I’m not aware of any federal prisoners currently in the Anderson County jail, but I’ll have to double-check that.
I think there have been attempts to consider who should be in jail, including in previous election campaigns for Anderson County DA and in the alternatives to incarceration program. But it seems to me that voters tend to prefer a get-tough-on-crime approach, particularly in offices related to law enforcement. Still, I’ve heard good discussions over the years about whether it might make sense to find other alternatives for certain non-violent offenders. And I think local law enforcement’s crisis intervention programs try to ensure that those who might need mental treatment receive it, rather than incarceration.
Rob,
I first talked to now-retired jail administrator Avery Johnson about eight years ago, and if I recall correctly, the percentage of inmates who were in jail awaiting trial was even higher than 50 percent. It’s possible, though, that that percentage, like the number of inmates each day, could vary.