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| Prisoners transferred after jail's shutdown |
| By Dave Hughes |
| Published: 04/10/2009 |
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WALDRON - The crumbling Scott County jail was shuttered Friday for repeated failure to meet jail standards, forcing the sheriff to farm out his prisoners to other counties. Sheriff Cody Carpenter said members of the 15th Judicial District Criminal Detention Facilities Review Committee showed up at his office Thursday and ordered him to close the jail after he told them he hadn't made any of the improvements the committee ordered a year ago. He said there was no way to bring the obsolete 10-bed jail into compliance without rebuilding it. "It was no surprise," Carpenter said of the committee's action Thursday. "I've been telling the county judge and the Quorum Court for more than a year this day was coming." Carpenter had to scramble to find bed space for his prisoners in other jurisdictions. He said two of the six county prisoners were sent to Yell County and the other four went to Sebastian County. Scott County houses its female prisoners and juvenile detainees in other counties. Without a jail of his own, Carpenter said it will be time- consuming and a drain on his budget to seek out jail space in other areas, burn fuel and time transporting prisoners and paying to use someone else's jail. "This will not hinder law enforcement in the county," he said. "It's not going to slow us down a bit." Carpenter has to look for bed space in other counties despite having a new $5 million, 76-bed jail only a few feet from his office. The sheriff doesn't have enough money to operate it. His operating budget now is about $200,000, and he said he would need another $300,000 a year to operate the new jail, which he said would fill to capacity immediately. He also would have to double or triple the size of his jail staff, now at six. Read more. If link has expired, check the website of the article's original news source. |
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