Sheriff's office officially restructuring with Juvenile Detention

With a crowded jail and juvenile crime rate on the rise, the Lincoln County Commissioners on Wednesday approved a measure for the Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office to begin absorbing the Troy Juvenile Detention facility.

The sheriff’s office for some time has been working to restructure its department to include the Troy Juvenile Detention facility — a hopeful source of revenue for the county.

This all comes at a time at which the in the last six months, the sheriff’s office has experienced a rise in number of inmates housed in the Lincoln County Detention Center.

“They can no longer walk through the cells comfortably,” Undersheriff Brandon Huff said. “That tension just continues to grow.”

The facility was built for 25 people, but they currently have reached maximum capacity with 40.

Huff said that it will take some detailed and lengthy analysis to try and figure out why their inmate population has increased. Huff has been looking at whether judges are setting higher bonds, and whether the inmates are repeat offenders or new offenders. While the unprecedented number of new inmates continues to rise, that number doesn’t necessarily mean that person doesn’t have a criminal history somewhere else — something that can also increase an offender’s bond.

“It’s an issue that’s not going to go away and it’s not going to get any better,” Sheriff Roby Bowe said.

With jail and prison standards constantly shifting, Huff said he’s also concerned about expansion because they may no longer be grandfathered in with their current regulations if they expand, which could make them legally required to follow certain modern criteria such as installing outdoor recreation.

Due to a crowded jail, the detention facility could have a different utility — housing female adult inmates. The precedent for this has been set in the past couple of weeks when they housed three inmates in the facility. While this, in part, would go to help solve the issue of a crowded jail, the option of revenue from the detention facility may not be fulfilled.

Commissioner Mike Cole asked Huff and Bowe during the meeting, “How do we expand our adult facilities but still use our juvenile facilities to create revenue?”

“The problem is that we don’t have the option of not housing these people,” Huff replied. “We’re at the mercy of the system that we’ve got right now, and unfortunately it’s trending up.”

If it all works out, the sheriff’s office would inherit eight full-time employees, which, over time with training, may help with some transportations of inmates.

“This is a huge step for us and the county as a whole,” Huff said.

According to the county’s human resource and payroll coordinator Dallas Wamsley, startup costs are not the only additional expense. In fact, there may be healthcare costs for the 10 new county employees they will absorb. They are also going to have to make the wages equal when they combine, and are most likely rather to raise wages than lower them to make it balance.

“I appreciate the whole effort and I totally support it,” Mike Cole said. “I do want to be kept up-to-date on everything moving into this. I think this is probably the biggest thing that’s going to hit Lincoln County in a while. I think we need to be very aware that the microscope is going to be out.”

One trend that Huff was able to pull together was the trend in the juveniles at the detention center since 2013.

From 67 in 2013/2014 to 164 in 2014/2015 to 200 in 2015/2016 — an over 300 percent increase. In 2015/2016 they only saw three individuals who were from out-of-county, and they didn’t have any the previous year.