News Talk 94.1/AM 1600 Where The Upper Cumberland Talks
The Tennessee Corrections Institute has awarded another year of certification for the DeKalb County Jail.
DeKalb County Jail Committee Chairman Larry Green said TCI Deputy Director Bob Bass played a huge role in helping the county maintain certification at TCI’s December 4th meeting. Green said now that the county is under a plan of action again, there is some pressure to get a long-term solution in place.
“Well obviously you can’t drag it out forever,” Green said. “You got to be moving toward the end result and the end result is getting a jail that will be certified for the number of beds that we are required to have.”
Green said the challenge will be to figure out how many beds the jail will need to satisfy TCI requirements and the county’s needs. Green said county officials will host a meeting on January 6th to begin the new plan of action.
“At that point, we will basically begin at ground zero and start with a new plan of action and try to figure out where we can go with a cost that the voters will approve,” Green said. “And that TCI would approve. Of course, TCI is the main one we got to contend with to keep our jail certified.”
Green said under the plan of action TCI is requiring the county to show incremental progress on addressing the jail however the amount of progress needed at each stage is not clear. Green said he is not worried about the lack of clarity as he believes this time around the county will get it right.
“They haven’t really set a timetable for us but with Bob Bass working with us I think we will make measurable progress probably each time we meet,” Green said. “We are going to take a little bit of a different approach to it than what we did before.”
Green said the county is paying a daily rate to house inmates at other facilities. Green said these costs are another reason the county wants to get the jail addressed.
“Well it makes us want to get it done as soon as possible because you are basically I don’t want to really use that term just burning money but that’s basically what we are doing,” Green said. “We are spending money housing prisoners in other counties when we could be spending money on our own jail so the sooner we can get through with it the better off we are.”
Green said Bass is actually retiring from TCI in December but will continue to be the county’s consultant throughout the process.
