Sheriff Nearing Contract With US Marshall For Inmates

The Putnam County Sheriff’s Department is in the final stages of securing a contract with the U.S. Marshall’s Office to house federal inmates in the soon-to-be-expanded jail.

Sheriff Eddie Farris said a deal is just a “few dollars away.” He said he is trying to ensure that the department gets every dollar possible from the Marshall Service, and is confident that he can make that happen. Farris said he expects to increase the inmate population by 25 percent initially.

“The federal population’s down a little bit right now,” Farris said. “So, we will get inmates. Make no mistake about that. It may be a little while once we start the process before we’re actually full with 100 or 110 inmates, so it may be a little while, so we’ll cross that bridge when we get there.”

Farris said the department is contracting for 100 male beds and 10 female beds. He said the federal inmates would be pretrial inmates yet to be sentenced, so they can be integrated into the existing population at the jail.

“The U.S. Marshall in the middle district, which is Nashville, the U.S. Marshall in the eastern district, both are good friends of mine,” Farris said.

He said he hopes for the deal to settle at $70 per day, if not more. He said the department has hired 50 of the 60 new employees for the new jail that the county budgeted for in its last budget cycle.

“I feel confident with that, and we’re on track to, hopefully, get the other 10 hired here shortly,” Farris said. “We’ve been able to, I feel like, hire some good people to do that. So, excited about that.”