If an animal rescue center kept stray dogs and feral cats in the same manner the citizens of Hamilton County are housing our prisoners, there is no doubt in my mind those people would be arrested. The Hamilton County Jail is a chamber of horrors – flat and simple -- and both County Mayor Jim Coppinger and Sheriff Jim Hammond know it. That’s why the two of them finally allowed me full and total access to a disturbing phenomenon yesterday. I can only liken the experience to visiting an impoverished Third World Country.

To begin, it is a ticking time bomb. Mark my words – when between 15 and 20 officers are tasked to oversee 600 very unhappy people, that explosion could occur at any second. Sheriff Hammond and some truly magnificent Sheriff’s Department officers are doing everything they can to keep the lid on an absolutely shameful situation but even I can see how it could become catastrophic in a hurry.

The maximum the Hamilton County Jail is set up to hold is 500 prisoners. Tuesday’s count was 599 and between 15-to-25 new “guests” arrive on a normal day. If you are 100 over the limit and have an endless influx, that means the two holding cells, where a maximum of 25 prisoners await cell assignments, will each house twice the number tonight. It is shocking to see.

There is hardly room to stand. Men sleep on the concrete floor like sardines in a can. Each covers his head with the blanket and, wrapped just so, resemble cordwood. There is just one toilet and, if an inmate is lucky, he might get a shower every seven days. Oh, and to break the monotony there is always at least one bad fight per day.

Believe me, I just saw what I would have never believed. I heard it was bad – both Mayor Coppinger and Sheriff Hammond know that it is inhumane but they are helpless. The only recourse is to pay the privately-operated Silverdale workhouse for space – it is whispered they have 100 empty beds – but there is no money to do that. So all of our jailers work “mandatory overtime” at what has to be among the worst jobs in America.

In the last budget Sheriff Hammond pleaded for 20 additional jailers but got none for the third or fourth straight year … tick, tick, tick … The night before last, when five prisoners needed to be taken to mental health facilities … the guard count was so thin three officers on the second shift had to work overtime to transport the worst three. The other two prisoners needed to be seen but there was no one to escort each of them. Tick … tick … tick.

As a matter of fact a full 40 percent of the 600 men now in our county jail must take psychotropic medications. “Mental health drugs now cost us a quarter-million a year,” said the sheriff, adding, “We are actually a mental hospital.” Through a program with Erlanger, a full-time mental health counselor finally started this week. If 240 inmates are already taking regular doses of psychotropic meds, let me know when you get the appointment schedule worked out.

The state’s blackest eye is the fact they have shaved our mental health beds to near nothing. So people with deep emotional issues and flaming mental disorders – usually through no fault of their own – are put in jail. That’s where they stay. Some are suicidal. Others are violent. There was one yesterday who stood with his head pressed into a corner of his cell and screamed profanities non-stop. The prisoner who is wedged in the tight row of blankets on the floor may be going into drug withdrawal right beside an alleged murderer. How will that turn out? Tick … tick … tick.

Every weekday about 150 prisoners are escorted to a holding area – this at 6 a.m. -- for court appearances in the nearby Courts Building. Every day about half of those prisoners – say, 75 -- are never called. They are handed a slip saying the hearing is postponed for four weeks, or there was no room on the docket, or a myriad of other reasons they’ll have to stay in an overcrowded time bomb another month or two. It’s the system, don’t you see, and all 75 who are rejected are absolutely furious. Tick … tick … tick.

The newest puzzle is the population dynamic – you have four or five different gangs who all hate each other. You have brawlers, guys who can take a newspaper and, over time, use jailhouse techniques to turn it into a lethal weapon. The jailers continuously rotate prisoners due to the high dangers and there is worse, much worse, anger and hate and rage when 48 men are crammed into a space that can’t accommodate one of them. Tick … tick … tick.

The Hamilton County Commission is facing three huge problems:

* -- Face it: A new jail in unavoidable. It is no longer an option, as you will see in the third problem. A new jail will cost in the vicinity of $100 million. Go ahead, gulp, but it is easy to research. If we take the 600 prisoners in the county lockup – which is a maximum security unit – and combine the 968 who were caged at the workhouse yesterday – a minimum security facility – we would need between 1,800 and 2,000 beds.

* -- Face it: If we broke ground on a new jail right now, it would take three-plus years to make it a functioning reality. You need to know crime is not decreasing. Our current county jail – which we must continue to use for no less than three years but more like five – needs millions in renovations, improvements and repairs immediately. The County Commission best get to work in a great big hurry. The majority of our commissioners have never toured the jail. Ever. (Yes, there is a log with dates.) Most of our elected leaders have never been there. The guards still laugh about Chester Bankston wanting to run faster than I did. Joe Graham has seen it. And, oh, Greg Beck was a jailer 20 years ago but that was the last time he was around. “Tell him he’ll be shocked.”

* -- The biggest ‘Face it’ of all: When a county corrections facility is over-crowded, under-staffed and in dreadful repair, it is hard to move it up the food chain … unless a federal judge comes down like the wrath of God because prisoners are being subjected to atrocities and indignities – like being forced to pee between jail bars into a garbage can because the crowding is so bad. The way a federal judge works is like this: He sends a message from on high to the County Commission that demands – this instant -- a fistful of blank but signed checks. He fills in the amounts it takes to return decency in a humane way. And the helpless commissioners, under heavy ridicule due to the amounts the judge will spend, will learn to never let things get this bad again. It is certifiably horrible, inhumane, and absolutely unacceptable. That federal judge is coming, just you wait.

Tick … tick … tick.

* * *

I would be horribly remiss if I did not publicly acknowledge the absolute cooperation of Sheriff Jim Hammond, Chief Deputy Allen Branum, Deputy Chief Joseph Fowler and Director Gino Bennett for giving me most of their day and unashamedly answering my every question. Never did I expect such honest and open insight into our county’s greatest horror. Why? “We want to treat every human being with respect, integrity and professionalism. We want the best possible outcome for everyone,” said Sheriff Hammond. “We are not proud of what you’ll see. But we will never hide anything.”

Captain Gene Coppinger, who oversees a tremendously dedicated group of jail personnel (“The best total group that has been here in the 33 years that I have been here.”) He personally took me on a very revealing tour unlike any I have ever known. (“We want you to see everything and anything … we are honored that you would come.”) Captain Coppinger (no kin to Mayor Jim) even told me why he has not retired. “I love my job. I love leading our officers and I love trying to be kind to every prisoner that I can.” Asked has the jail been in such despicable condition very long, he replied, “I don’t like to be political … but this is the worst I have seen in the 33 years I have been here.”

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