| Loudon County Jail regains certification
Tennessee Corrections Institute has granted Loudon
County Jail recertification after the facility went a year without
the designation.
The decision was made Sept. 6 when Loudon County
Sheriff Tim Guider and Mayor Rollen “Buddy” Bradshaw went before the
TCI board, the first meeting for county officials since the
decertification ruling in June 2016.
“First of all, just keeping our jail certified is a
matter of doing things the right way, and so it also takes some
legal liabilities out as far as lawsuits go,” Bradshaw said. “Just
keep the ball moving forward, get progress moving to me is the
important thing, getting this thing fixed and putting it behind us
again. This has been going on, I guess, for about five years now.”
Guider said the board appeared pleased with the
county’s progress and would likely keep the certification as long as
continued progress was made on jail expansion.
“The decertification came from a lack of action; we
were very stagnant,” Bradshaw said. “We had talked a lot about it
but didn’t see any real action, and so now we’ve got this ready to
go, we’ve got a hard number on (Michael Brady Inc.) with getting
plans fine-tuned. They appreciated that and recognized that and that
allowed them to give us our certification back.”
MBI representatives are working with Loudon County to
get designs perfected. MBI representative Jay Henderlight said last
month the plan is to complete designs by the middle of December and
submit them to the state fire marshal’s office. Once submitted,
review could take 4-6 weeks.
Loudon County Commission in March approved up to $15
million for a jail expansion on the current Justice Center property.
“Of course, it all depends on how the bidding process
comes in, how low some of the bids are and if that’s going to allow
additional funds to go toward renovating the old part of the jail so
that we can house more female inmates,” Guider said.
The last jail inspection from TCI was June 15,
Cpl. Angi Martin, administrative assistant to Capt. Jake Keener,
said, noting officials have a 60-day window after the visit to
correct any deficiencies.
TCI has the ability to check on jails at any
moment, even unannounced, Guider said.
“I want to commend the jail staff for getting the
jail in condition for compliance, everything except for the
overcrowding, and, secondly, I think it will help the county as
far as liability is concerned to where if we do get sued for any
particular deficiencies then TCI will back us, support us in
that effort,” Guider said.
Loudon County Jail was holding 125 inmates as of
Thursday, which Martin said is a lower count than recent days.
“It’s a constant work in progress,” Martin said.
“... Of course, it never gets down to 91, which is what we’re
bedded for. As far as any other deficiencies that we have had on
an original inspection, we had always corrected by the time they
had to come back for a re-inspection. ... The only deficiency
that we could not fix is overcrowding, which is why we ended up
getting decertified. Throughout the year we continue to work on
those issues to make sure that we do not fall back into a
deficiency.”
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9/20/17