Putnam Expanded Jail Set For Thursday Open

The Putnam County Sheriff’s Department is set to open the new 130,000-square-foot jail addition this week.

County Sheriff Eddie Farris said the staff is excited to open the expanded facility. Farris said the facility should help improve conditions for inmates, per state law, caused by overcrowding.

“We have been notoriously low as far as inmate count goes,” Farris said. “In fact, even today counties that are relatively compared to our size are holding between 400 to 600 inmates and so we are on the low side thank goodness, but we certainly got our share and we simply outgrown what we had.”

Farris said the new facility will be more technologically advanced with advanced cameras and systems to open cells. Visitation will be exclusively via video.

“We’ve battled it for years it’s not changed,” Farris said. “But over the years as you can imagine especially 20, 30, 40, 50 years ago you battle visitors trying to bring stuff in that shouldn’t be here and all that kind of stuff. It helps us in a way but this building is full of technology.”

A public ceremony will take place Thursday. Inmates will be moved into the new facility next Monday.

Farris said the jail will also sustain the region as it grows. An entire section of the facility has been built for the future, and has yet to be built out.

“I certainly feel good about this taken the county out for many years,” Farris said. “Now how far is that, that is just a guess of course. It depends on how we grow here in Putnam County and as we know we got people moving in rapidly.”

The $52 million project will be staffed by dozens of new employees hired over the last year. County Commissioners fully funded Farris’ request, which were actually below what state officials suggested.

“It has been challenging at times but we stayed with it,” Farris said. “I feel good about it and I think we got some really good individuals that we have hired.”