News Talk 94.1/AM 1600 Where The Upper Cumberland Talks
The Putnam County Sheriff’s Office will conduct a study examining how it can expand its current jail facilities.
Sheriff Eddie Farris said an expansion into the jail’s lower parking lot could create enough room for over 600 additional inmates.
“We’re doing this with the projection of our growth in our county and what’s happened over the last several years as far as the crime here and those kinds of things, ” Farris said. “We’re projecting that to take us… down the road that we’ll be able to house and hold the inmates that we’re needing to hold over the next 20 years.”
Farris said the jail has struggled in recent years with a large inmate population.
“We’re very overcrowded. We’re at a capacity of 400-plus every single day,” Farris said. “Our current facility is supposed to hold 250, so we’re way over the limit and we’ve been over the limit for quite some time.”
County commissioners voted to approve the jail study Monday with a price tag of $280,000. Cope Architecture will assist in the jail study.
