Thomas County jail officials say unsafe conditions, including blind spots, corroded doors, and inadequate ventilation, require urgent renovations to protect staff, inmates, and the community.
The Thomas County Jails inmate population is currently 235, sometimes exceeding 300, which strains ventilation, security, and living conditions. Immediate repairs include roof fixes for A and B pods, updated wiring, locking mechanisms, lighting, showers, and a zero-pressure isolation room. Watch the video to see what jail leaders say about the necessary funding for all the renovations.
BROADCAST TRANSCRIPT:
This is what a security risk looks like inside one of the jail pods in Thomas County, from leaking roofs to doors that wont lock, jail leaders are pushing for urgent changes.
When you get more inmates in here than what the ventilation will handle, you’ll have infectious diseases spread, you’ll have fights, conflicts, and things kicking off, said Jerome Burgess, Jail Captain.
Im taking a closer look at whats standing in the way of progress, and why jail leaders say they cant afford to wait any longer.
The Thomas County Jail is now 33 years old, and its struggling to keep up with a growing inmate population thats currently at 235, though it sometimes goes over 300.
Thats more than the facility was designed for, and jail leaders say the problem is compounded because mental health inmates take up more space than regular inmates, reducing the overall housing capacity.
Our issue is the state of Georgia decided to close Southwestern State Hospital. So we now have a lot of the mental patients that were in Southwestern State Hospital are now being housed in Thomas County Jail. So we need to be able to secure those people from the general population for their air protection and also for the general population’s protection, said Tim Watkins, Sheriff.
Housing mental health patients adds pressure on the jails safety and space. Some of the most urgent issues include:
The priority is to repair the roof. We have two housing units, A pod and B pod, and both sides are leaking, Burgess.
After that comes upgrading the security system, fixing plumbing, replacing bedding, repairing corroded doors, addressing mold, updating locking mechanisms, modernizing lighting, and renovating showers.
Well, we have many blind spots in our housing unit, and the inmates know this. At times, they do use it for, like, altercations, fights. They’ll get into the blind spot, and they’ll have fights. They do their transactions and stuff. We’d be naive to think that our jail is completely drug-free. It’s going to get in. If there’s a demand for it, there’s going to be a way to get it in, Burgess.
These renovations arent a luxurytheyre a necessity. Burgess warns that delays could put staff, inmates, and the public at risk and could open the county up to lawsuits if someone gets hurt..
If the doors are so eroded and corroded that they’re rotten off at the bottom, are we really secure? Are we protecting the people around us from the inmate population that could victimize them, said Burgess
Engineers who evaluated the jail say it would actually be more cost-effective to build a completely new facility rather than keep patching this 33-year-old building.
In the perfect world, the sheriff would like to have a new jail with direct supervision. We would actually cut down on the staff we would need. We could actually supervise more inmates with less personnel. But that’s a bridge that we’ll have to address with the county commissioners, said Watkins.
Most of the critical repairs are on hold until county commissioners approve the work and help secure funding but roof repairs are expected to begin within 30 days.
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