The Greene County Jail continues to be overcrowded.

This past Saturday, Sheriff Jack Williams says they had 15 inmates at the eight-cell county jail. On average they have 10-12 inmates per day with another 5-10 inmates at other county jail facilities. According to the jail report for 2019, the average number of inmates held at the county jail was 33 per month and Williams explains that the average takes into consideration those that are booked and released from jail the same day.

The current facility was built in the 1970s and Williams notes they get “dinged” by the state jail inspector during their annual inspection for items that are of concern and not to state code. However, Williams says those items are grandfathered in and if they want to improve portions of the jail, the entire facility has to be upgraded to meet current state code. He explains another issue they have with inmates.

“One of the bigger problems is when we have a female sentenced to jail, we can’t hold them here all the time because we don’t always have females on staff, with the 24/7 coverage. So when we have that problem we have to ship them out to other counties also.”

Williams contends that the county needs a new jail facility, but he believes they are landlocked in their current location from adding on more space at the law enforcement center. He would like to expand the jail facility to include 25 beds, which would serve an immediate purpose.

“Right now we have 27 people waiting to serve sentences but as long as we are full, they’re not able to. So I believe if we had that bigger jail we could take care of all these people’s sentences a lot faster.”

Williams adds, a bigger jail would be more efficient by lowering costs to transport inmates to other jail facilities and keep his deputies within the county at all times. No formal plans have been made at this time.