Chuck Fritts
By Anderson County Commission Chairman Chuck Fritts
Commissioners,
A question we need to be asking ourselves: “Would our citizens rather us house low-risk federal prisoners in the Anderson County Detention Facility, or would they rather we raise their property taxes by about 15 cents to fund the cost of staffing the new jail addition?” When you honestly look at it, these are the only two choices we really have.
As chairman, I don’t have the opportunity to speak during our meetings, so I’ll give you my comments in advance. I have “carbon copied†the press so you don’t have to worry about me violating the Sunshine Law with this information.
There is a proposal being presented to place a non-binding referendum on the ballot in August on whether or not to house “low-risk federal prisoners†in the Anderson County Detention Facility. This concerns me greatly for several reasons:
- We are still operating under a Plan of Action with the state on how we are to proceed with bringing our jail into compliance.
- We have already given the sheriff the authority the hire the 36 jailers needed to open the new jail addition. Come July 1, Anderson County will have to start paying the bill for the jailers being hired.
- If we wait for a non-binding referendum in August, we would have to come up with the money somewhere to pay for these 36 jailers or send them home. We don’t have any new revenue coming in to pay for this type of increase.
- We can’t take it out of our fund balance because we’re finally improving our credit rating by building it back up where it should be.
We are risking up to a 15-cent tax increase if we put off doing what we were elected to do and make the decisions the citizens of Anderson County elected us to. We could make the statement that we can send “all†state prisoners back to the state and that will eliminate our problem. I’m sorry to say, that’s NOT going to happen. It’s good comments to make, and it’s maybe what the citizens might want to hear, but in the real world that’s not going to happen.
Every jail in the State of Tennessee is overcrowded, and it’s due a lot to housing state prisoners. The state prison system is overcrowded and they have no place to put them, so the county jails are left with them until there’s finally room. Anderson County Detention Facility is overcrowded, and it’s an issue we can’t ignore.
Do I want to house low-risk federal prisoners? No! Do I want to pass a 15-cent tax increase on to the property owners of Anderson County? Definitely NO! That’s why a plan of housing low-risk federal prisoners was looked into. It was to let the jail pay for itself and not have to pass the burden on to the tax payers. Now is not the time to have a major tax increase, especially when you can get creative and come up with ways to avoid it.
When the new jail addition was built, we built it large enough to where it would hopefully take us to the next 20 years. By us having the extra space right now, it was thought that we could lease out about 50 beds to low-risk federal prisoners to pay the cost for the extra jailers to man the new jail addition instead of passing another 15-cent tax increase to the property owners of the county.
In all these questions being asked about housing low-risk federal prisoners, the question should be included: Would you rather house low-risk federal prisoners or agree to a 15-cent tax increase to pay for the hiring of the 36 extra jailers? If our citizens were given that choice, I can’t see them agreeing for a tax increase. The 36 extra jailers have to be paid for somehow.
If we don’t lease out the beds, or if we don’t have a 15-cent tax increase, then you have to send the 36 extra jailers home come July 1. The sheriff then won’t open the new jail addition, we don’t meet the requirements under the Plan of Action with the state, and the Anderson County Jail will get decertified. This then will end up costing the tax payers major dollars, and they will get nothing to show for it.
Let’s not be known as the Commission that refused to take action and to do what is right from the very beginning. Let’s protect the citizens of this great County and do what they elected us to do!
Chuck Fritts
Commissioner, District 1
***
Note: Fritts sent these comments to Anderson County Commissioners and reporters on Wednesday.
Philip W Nipper says
Personally, I don’t have a big problem with housing state or federal inmates just as long as it pays to do so or at least is a break even situation. Mr. Chairman, could you explain the cost factor(s) to the citizens so we have a better understanding of the issue? As an example, I have read that it costs the county more per inmate than the county gets paid either from the state of the federal government to house that inmate. True or false? Also could you provide data regarding how the other counties in the state deal with this problem. Do all the other counties house state and or federal inmates? Do all the counties get paid the same for each inmate as we would? Also, hasn’t it always been the plan from the get go to house state and or federal inmates to pay for the jail or did the county not have a plan? I thank you for your time and your service.
Rob Woodward says
This whole issue is getting quite confusing (probably intentionally so).
If the old jail holds 354 inmates and the population of the jail is below that mark, why are we even opening the new wing? Are we planning on taking in federal inmates just so we have someone in the new wing of the jail to help pay for the guards required to watch the federal inmates? That seems like awfully convoluted logic.
Seems to me that rather than open the new wing and finding ways to fill it, we should just leave it mothballed. Commissioner Iwanski promised that the Alternatives to Incarceration project would reduce the jail population and District Attorney Clark and Sheriff White have both announced a dramatic reduction in crime in Anderson County. Shouldn’t we be planning for reduced jail populations?
Rob Woodward says
John,
Chairman Fritts states in this letter that “Anderson County Detention Facility is overcrowded, and it’s an issue we can’t ignore.”
Is this true? Can you get us the actual statistics on how many the jail holds and and how many are in it?
Thanks.
johnhuotari says
Rob,
I’ll see if I can get some numbers for you.
John
johnhuotari says
Rob,
I don’t know if I got exactly the numbers you are seeking, but I did ask Sheriff White for a few yesterday.
Although the numbers can fluctuate from day-to-day, Anderson County Mayor Terry Frank recently said the jail population is hovering at about 315. I think the normal level might be a bit higher than that, but I don’t have a number. White said the percentage of state inmates is about one-third, so in the range of 100 or so. That roughly fits the number of state prisoners cited by Anderson County Commissioner Dusty Irwin earlier this month.
There are currently no federal inmates in the Anderson County jail.
Irwin said the jail will have a total capacity of 566 beds when the 212-bed expansion is completed. I’m assuming that means the current capacity is about 354. White said the jail should only be 80 percent full under state guidelines in order to properly classify inmates by gender, nature of crime, disabilities, threats, mental health issues, etc. I assume that should give an available capacity of about 453. Among the overcrowding issues has been overcrowding in the women’s section, where if I recall correctly, women were sleeping on mattresses on the floor the last time I toured the jail in December 2012.
I hope that helps, and please let me know if you have any other questions.
Thank you,
John
Rob Woodward says
Mr. Fritts,
Your excellent letter makes lots of common sense points, but the problem is that it narrows down our choices to A or B. Aren’t their other options? I will ask you the same question I asked Mr. Huotori: How many of our current inmates are awaiting trial? And as a follow up, wouldn’t it be an easier (and cheaper) fix for the county to hire maybe 2 more prosecutors to expedite the trials of these inmates than to hire 36 more employees at the jail?
Thank you for reaching out to the public and for your service.
Chuck Fritts says
Dealing with our Detention Facility is a very complicated issue. Again we built both the Minimum & Maximum Security Additions to hopefully take us to the next 20 years and then some. This way we don’t have to keep coming back to the tax payer to add on again. With new programs in-place to reduce overcrowding, we’re hoping this will last even longer than that.
We have to meet & follow numerous State & Federal guidelines in how we operate our jail. Under our plan-of-action we have with the State, not only do we have to address the overcrowding issue, but we also have to address the Classification of our prisoners. Presently we do not classify prisoners in Anderson County. We’ve never had the space. You have to have sight and sound separation between male & female prisoners. Our new Dormitory is for Minimum Security male prisoners only. Presently we only have so many of those type prisoners, but it does free up space in our Maximum Security side where we’re still overcrowded. You may have extra beds in the Dorm, but you can’t use them for Maximum Security Prisoners.
As for the Maximum Security Addition, it’s been discussed since day one about using Low-Risk Federal Prisoners as a source of revenue to fund the 36 extra jailers needed to staff the new addition. The State pays only $35/day for the County to house one of their prisoners. Presently we have no choice because the State prisons are all full and they have no where to put them. So we get stuck with them until space becomes available.
Chuck Fritts says
Part II: As for the Low-Risk Federal Prisoners, we were looking at working up a contract where we would get between $80-$90/day. They would be responsible for all medical costs, etc.. It would not only pay for their upkeep, but would pay for the total costs of hiring the 36 extra jailers needed to staff the new Maximum Security Addition. This lets the jail fund itself instead of putting the burden back on the tax payer!
johnhuotari says
Chuck,
Thank you for your responses.
John
Rob Woodward says
Chairman Fritts,
Thank you so much for taking time to answer citizen questions on this very complicated issues. It is very refreshing to have an elected official that will answer questions in a very point blank fashion.
Could you please answer these three questions for me that I might be better able to understand the issue?
1) If the Anderson County Detention Facility expansion were opened today without bringing in more state inmates or federal inmates, how many inmates would be housed in the 212 bed facility?
2) How many of the inmates that are currently housed in the Anderson County Detention Facility are currently serving sentences for adjudicated misdemeanor crimes?
3) How many of the inmates at the ACDF are currently awaiting a hearing and have yet to be convicted or sentenced?
Again, I appreciate plain, simple answers to these questions so that I can make an informed decision on this issue.
Andrew Howe says
As always, we should look for alternative answers – a change in the system instead of an expansion of the existing system. In this case, we may look no further than the birthplace of democracy. No, not the USA, but The Netherlands.
http://jcjusticecenter.com/2013/09/14/netherlands-closing-19-prisons-due-to-lack-of-criminals/
Chuck Fritts says
Sorry I’m late responding, but it took some time getting these numbers. This is what we have in the Anderson County Detention Facility as of today:
Non-Sentenced Misdemeanors —————- 60 Prisoners
Non-Sentenced Felons ———————— 132 Prisoners
Sentenced Misdemeamors ——————— 34 Prisoners
Sentenced Felons ——————————– 8 Prisoners
Parole Violations ——————————– 15 Prisioners
Tenn. Dept. of Corrections (TDOC) ————- 2 Prisoners (Split)
TDOC (<3 yrs. Sentenced Confinement) —– 15 Prisoners
TDOC (+3 yrs. Sentenced Confinement) —– 52 Prisoners
Pending Judgement Order ——————— 13 Prisoners
Total 331 Prisoners
johnhuotari says
Thank you.
That’s the first time I’ve seen numbers like that (although it’s possible they’ve been in some of the earlier reports I’ve received, and I just didn’t see them).
Rob Woodward says
Thank you Chairman Fritts for those figures.
It would appear that my initial concerns may indeed be correct. If I read your numbers correctly, it seems that around 60 % if the jail population has yet to even be sentenced.
Perhaps that county could look into adding additional prosecutors to get these inmates off to their rightful housing (in the case of felons) or into a treatment/probationary status (in the case of misdemeanants).
Seems much more cost effective than the ever expanding jail alternative.
Rob Woodward says
In fact, if I read the numbers correctly only about a third of the jail population are actually convicted and serving sentences.