MONROE COUNTY, Ga. — Sheriff Brad Freeman said the Monroe County Jail sometimes almost hits capacity making it difficult to find places to put inmates.
"This has become probably the biggest problem we have," Freeman said
Freeman said the jail needs the upgrade because the county keeps growing.
"When the county grows, the jail population grows also, so you've got to keep on top of the growth and you know be proactive and not reactive," Freeman said.
The priority is getting more holding cells. Freeman said they're almost always occupied by inmates with mental health problems. Freeman said the jail has become the Monroe County mental health center.
"You can't put them in general population. You have to, you have to, you know segregate them. When you segregate them, currently we only have three holding cells, so when you segregate them it pretty much takes up all the holding cells. So if you bring somebody in that's intoxicated or just needs to sit there and sober up for awhile, you really have no place to put them," Freeman said.
When that happens, Freeman said people are booked and then either sit on stools by the holding cells or are placed with general inmates. Freeman said sending inmates to other facilities isn't an option because nearby jails don't have room and the transfer can be costly.
"If the inmate's in let's say the Catoosa County Jail and he calls us and says 'Hey your inmate broke your ankle', Monroe County's on the hook for that injury and we've got to go to Catoosa County to pick him up and carry him to the hospital," Freeman said.
The captain of the jail staff said the average stay at the jail is about a week, but Freeman said they try to get people booked quickly after an arrest.
He calls the booking room Grand Central Station. There's three occupied holding rooms, plus the constant flow of deputies dropping off new arrests, people being booked, and more. Freeman said they're looking to get $2.5 million dollars from the county SPLOST that will be voted on in November.
"We'd like to add about 30 more beds if possible and at least six to eight holding cells," Freeman said.
The jail's built like a pie and one of the slices is used as an open space for inmates. Freeman said they can turn that into another block and make room for more holding cells.
"You could come off of this wall and you would just put holding cells down here obviously the doors would be inside," Freeman said.
Freeman said if they don't get the expansion this year, they'll keep doing what they can to get by.
"Eventually it's going to be something that the taxpayers are going to have to fill the brunt on because we're going to have to have it and we're going to have to pay whether we transport inmates to another county or we build a facility here," Freeman said.