Wayne County Jail Operations Lt. James Tadlock says jailers areconcerned these days with keeping inmates content in crowded conditions.
The two year old Wayne County jail is already full. Jailers say newdrunk driving and domestic violence laws, combined with structuredsentencing, are landing more people behind bars.
The Wayne County staff supports the tougher laws, but they're strugglingto find room for the extra tenants. They're even sending inmates to otherjails. Ordinarily, they would be paid about $40 per day to keep them inWayne County.
Until recently, that meant $1,100 a day for the federal prisoners alone, but with the lack of space inside, local suspects are taking up allthe beds, and forcing the federal prisoners and their money to go somewhere else.
Jailers say they may even have to re-open the old jail that closed twoyears ago. Major Glenn Odom of the Wayne County Sheriff's Department saysit's hoped they won't have to do that.
Jailers say an additional 100 beds would ease the immediate problem, but if the inmate population continues to climb, those beds will fill up.That would bring about a return of the crowding problem in just a fewyears.
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