News Talk 94.1/AM 1600 Where The Upper Cumberland Talks
Overton County Sheriff John Garrett said the jail will stick with video visitations for now.
“During this whole shutdown, our visitation never really shutdown,” Garrett said. “Even though it restricted people from coming to the jail and being able to sit in front of the visitation monitor or screen, families could remote in and set up an online visit. That happened a whole lot.”
Garrett said he was thankful the county already had video visitation in place before the shutdown. He said visitations, even remotely, helps inmate morale.
“Several years ago, we moved to video visitation,” Garrett said. “Any visitors that want to come to the jail, they’re going to be sitting in front of a screen. They don’t actually go back into the jail. We have an area designated in our small courtroom for visitors to be able to visit with the inmate population without ever having to go back into the jail.”
Garrett said the jail is still taking precautions to prevent the spread any viruses. For the foreseeable future, he said, only essential personnel will be allowed contact with inmates.
“We’re still restricting outside visitors going into the back,” Garrett said. “We’ve still got to do our due diligence to try to do some risk assessment. We’re still not allowing clergy or anyone else that doesn’t have to be in the back. We’re pretty much limiting all of our access back into the jail to employees or state social workers, and of course, our other staff.”
Some of the inmate work crews are starting the resume, Garrett said. However, he said he is trying to limit any contact the inmate population could have with the outside population.
“We’ve got our mowing crews out and going,” Garrett said. “Essentially they’re only having contact with themselves, which they would have inside the jail anyway. We have litter pickup crews that are going out, but, once again, other than the worker taking them out, it’s still the same inmate population, we’re just trying to limit the exposure to the outside population.”
Garrett said the jail staff has held up well during the pandemic. He said he is proud to have the staff he has.
