Published: August 06, 2008 03:32 am            

County jail to house outside inmates soon

PALESTINE — Despite an assortment of snags and holdups, Anderson County Sheriff Greg Taylor remains optimistic that the newly-expanded Anderson County Jail may resume housing out-of-county inmates by the end of the month.

For several months now, county officials have been waiting on completion of work on the fire alarm system in the old section of the jail.

Now that that work has been finished, however, a new problem has arisen, according to the sheriff.

“The fire alarms are done,” Taylor said. “I’m having problems with the wiring in the intercom system now. They’re working on it feverishly.”

The sheriff said the intercom system was functioning properly prior to the work on the fire alarm system. Once that work was finished, the intercom system went on the blink.

Once the old section of the jail is ready for occupants, the newly-expanded Anderson County Jail will have a total of 305 beds, with approximately two-thirds of those beds in the new section.

With the full compliment of 300-plus beds, the jail will then be in position to begin accepting out-of-county inmates.

Anderson County has contracts with Smith and Houston counties to house their inmates, in addition to another with private jail firm CiviGenics which operates facilities throughout the state, including ones in Groesbeck, Lufkin and Texarkana.

While Smith and Houston counties have not inquired recently about shipping inmates to Palestine, Taylor said CiviGenics apparently has the need to utilize the services of the Anderson County Jail.

While the intercom wiring issue first needs to be corrected, the sheriff said CiviGenics has also recently expressed some concerns about its contract with the county.

On Tuesday, Taylor, however, remained confident everything will come together in quick fashion and the Anderson County Jail will soon have some out-of-county inmates.

“Between the contract and the intercom, hopefully we’ll get that straightened out in the next week or so,” Taylor said.

Earlier this summer, Anderson County commissioners approved the hiring of five new jailers and a records clerk which were included in this year’s county budget as contingency items.

A few days after the Fourth of July holiday, the Anderson County Jail had a record-high 197 inmates, but its population has declined and was “in the 160s” as of Tuesday, according to the sheriff.

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Paul Stone may be contacted via e-mail at pstone@palestineherald.com

        

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