Sheriff Martin Edwards is reporting an increase in the jail population in Warren County. Sheriff Edwards explains:
“I have twenty available beds, plus two that we keep kind of reserved. We call it the two man, which is a cell you have to isolate people in. I have sixteen people in the jail itself. We are courtesy housing five in Mercer County and one in Knox County. So if you do the numbers there, that is twenty-two people, so of course we are over capacity right now. Early on, once all the COVID business started, the Governor and the Department of Corrections threw a moratorium on transfers to the DOC. Right now I am holding onto six people that should be in the Department of Corrections, should have been there months ago,” Edwards states.
Sheriff Edwards says he is in need of 3 Correctional Officers to fill positions immediately and he is in the process of recruiting qualified candidates.
Meanwhile, Sheriff Martin Edwards says while the process of a new jail is on hold right now, it’s still a matter of importance due to the safety of the staff and inmates. Edwards explains the challenges with inmates who are high on methamphetamine:
“There is a lot of wall banging that goes on. That kind of puts us in a boat. We do have a restraint chair and of course you have to get them into that. Now that is not done as a punishment. It is done to keep them from harming themselves. I think it is important that people understand that. If you start banging your fists against a steel wall you are going to break your hand. I couldn’t tell you how many times in the years I have been sheriff, we have had to haul somebody out to the hospital to get their hand x-rayed because they start beating on the wall. They do it to themselves, we are paying for it. So we do try to get them into that chair, but we are all very concerned about a phenomenon called excited delirium. This is where somebody that is heavily under the influence of drugs and they are restrained, it can cause them an extreme medical condition. It is almost like an engine seizing. We get very frightened about that, so that is what puts us in the boat, they do the dope and get themselves crazy, we have to be responsible for keeping them alive,” Sheriff Edwards reports.
Edwards says trying to get any kind of treatment is impossible because the Hospital doesn’t know what they ingested to begin with unfortunately.
