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| Overcrowding forces Putnam to send prisoners elsewhere |
| By palatkadailynews.com - Jackie Lerch |
| Published: 12/30/2011 |
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Putnam County's jail has been overcrowded since it opened in 1985, but this year saw a record number of inmates. As efforts to expand or build a new jail continue to stall, the county twice has sent inmates to a jail in Starke to ease the pressure and officials have taken other limited steps to deal with the lack of capacity. Jail overcrowding was selected as the No. 2 story of 2011 by the staff of the Palatka Daily News. The jail was designed to hold 231 prisoners, but the inmate population this year swelled past 400. Officials say conditions in the poorly designed facility are dangerous. Putnam County, FL -- "We no longer have the luxury of waiting to see what happens," Sheriff Jeff Hardy said in a letter to county commissioners in August. "With the inmate population growing at an alarming rate, I feel certain the risks of escapes, assaults, injuries to officers, and custody deaths will increase exponentially in the days ahead. The importance of this cannot be overstated." Major John Griffin, who is director of the sheriff's office corrections division, said Thursday there have been inmate fights and injuries to workers from overcrowding throughout the year. Inmates sleeping on floors four people are housed in cells designed to two inmates, he said. Hardy, saying the numbers were unsafe, sent 30 prisoners to the Bradford County jail in August, and another 30 were transferred in December, reducing the count from 407 to 477 inmates. Bradford County Sheriff Gordon Smith said Putnam's jail was one of the state's worst. "The county commission should be embarrassed by that jail," Smith said. "First it's not safe for the citizens we're supposed to protect, and second, it's not safe for the men and women who have to go in there and work." Smith reduced the holding fee for each prisoner from a $47 daily fee to $35 to help Hardy. Despite the reduction, Griffin said it cost around $30,000 per month to keep prisoners in Bradford County. In previous years, the jail has seen inmate suicides, deadly escapes and other violence. Read More. |
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