County can't immediately send felons to state

Bedford County Sheriff Randall Boyce said Monday that the county is at the mercy of the state when transferring felons to the Tennessee Department of Corrections (TDOC), despite what a county commissioner and an attorney general's opinion have indicated.

Commissioner J.D. "Bo" Wilson has said the county has the right not to keep state felons, and has pointed to a May 2008 attorney general's opinion, 08-103, stating that "...no county is required to house convicted felons sentenced to more than one (1) years of continuous confinement unless the county chooses to contract with the TDOC to house certain felons."

But Boyce said it doesn't work that way in actual practice. Local courts and judges do, in fact, sentence felons to serve their time with TDOC. But the way that works in most cases is that the county contacts TDOC and asks when beds will be available in the state system. Until and unless the state contacts the county with available beds, those prisoners must stay in the county jail.

"You cannot send state prisoners down there any time you want to," said Boyce.

The state also won't accept any inmates when it reaches 90 percent of its rated capacity, said Boyce.

Boyce and other local officials say the state is unwilling to even discuss taking prisoners who are sentenced to two years or less, since the time they actually serve will be less than a third of that -- only a few months -- under current guidelines.

Boyce said it's even harder to place female inmates with the state, with a waiting list of up to one year for the state to take female inmates except in special circumstances.

"We pretty much stay on the waiting list," said Boyce.

In 1985, Shelby County Sheriff Gene Barksdale, unwilling to get the state to accept some felons, took them and simply handcuffed them to a chain link fence at a state prison. Both the Shelby County jail system and the state prison system were under court mandates related to overcrowding at the time, and a judge ordered Barksdale to take back the prisoners or release them.

Boyce said he has no particular desire to house state inmates -- "It doesn't really matter to me," he said -- but repeated his contention that, all things being equal, they are a good financial deal for the county. Jim Hart, a jail management consultant for the University of Tennessee's County Technical Assistance Service (CTAS), told commissioners last June that the county was spending $37 per day on jail inmates and only receiving $35 per day from the state, and therefore was losing money on them. But Boyce said Hart's analysis included fixed costs like jail staffing, utilities, and a portion of the sheriff's salary, which the county would have to pay whether it kept state inmates or not.

"You're going to have me, regardless," said Boyce.

Boyce said that the $35 per day paid by the state for each felon is more than the extra costs created by having an extra inmate in the facility, and so any excess money helps to cover those fixed costs.

Boyce said that some other counties, such as Lawrence County, which recently built a new jail, call up and ask to take some of Bedford County's state felons, indicating that those counties, too, believe that keeping state inmates is a good financial deal.

Some counties get more than $35 per day from the state by signing a specific contract under which they agree to take a certain number of state inmates, which is the type of contract mentioned in the attorney general's opinion. Bedford County hasn't signed that kind of contract; rather, it operates under the general policies and procedures set by the state.

The number of state inmates is sometimes mentioned as a factor during periods of jail overcrowding. Some months back, when county officials were discussing the need for a new jail and justice center, the jail was said to be crowded. Currently, however, Boyce said the jail is "in pretty good shape" in terms of population.

"Of course, who knows when that's going to change," said Boyce.

Boyce said he is willing to discuss the situation with any county commissioner.