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| Grand Jury Condemns Jail Conditions |
| By Dunn Daily Record |
| Published: 12/22/2003 |
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A grand jury has demanded improvements in the Harnett County (N.C.) jail, calling the facility overcrowded and the cells "bug-infested." The report was submitted to the county commissioners after the annual grand jury inspection of the jail, which took place in August. The grand jury is made up of 18 members selected at random from the Harnett County community. The complaints are nothing new to Sheriff Larry Rollins and Capt. Bill Grady, administrator of the facility, who have been working on a solution to overcrowding problems since Sheriff Rollins took office last year. The jail population peaked at 163 in October in a jail built in 1987 and designed to house 84 people. "Everybody knows what that situation is," Sheriff Rollins said. "The people know it and the county commissioners know it." The increase in average population at the jail has reflected the increased arrest rates under Sheriff Rollins. The report highlighted overcrowding, with inmates "sleeping on the floor" in what were described as "bug-infested cells." The jail is also inspected twice a year by a state health and human resources inspector, who has the power to put the county under a court order to expand or provide better facilities. The Harnett jail is not currently under any such sanction. Inmates serving short sentences at the jail "is causing the already overcrowded facility to be even more so," the grand jury report said, and the women's quarters were described as "very overcrowded ... They have no common area in which to walk." The status and location of inmates at the jail is tracked on a white board with markers. The report said the grand jury members were "quite surprised" at this "obsolete method" of monitoring prisoners and suggested "a new computerized system should be installed in order to implement an efficient means of tracking the inmates." The grand jury report suggested some short-term improvements to improve conditions, one of which was allowing inmates to smoke. "Overcrowded conditions and not being allowed to smoke - to feed an addiction - worsen the attitude of the already agitated inmates," the report said. "These conditions create more injuries and unsafe and hazardous work conditions. More injuries and hazardous conditions mean more medical attention is required for inmates and thus more medical costs are incurred for Harnett County." The report suggested converting "mobile housing units" into cells and adjoining them to the existing facility, to relieve overcrowding and create an area for inmates wishing to smoke, and a commons area for female prisoners. The report said this would also allow inmates to be "segregated by the degree of crime committed and by age. It is too dangerous for inmates who commit violent and destructive crimes to be kept in the same area with inmates who commit less serious offenses." Another factor contributing to overcrowding is a backlog of cases in the court system. The grand jury report noted inmates are "kept too long before their cases are being tried before the court, some as long as a year." The report suggested one way to tackle this problem, saying judges should do whatever is necessary "to expedite the trial process and move the inmates on to permanent prison facilities." Among the changes the report urged judges to make were the elimination of "attorneys being granted numerous trial continuances; once or twice should only be allowed." It also said prisoners should not be returned to the jail once sentenced. |
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