A couple of weeks ago the Rhino reported on the battle between Guilford County commissioners and Sheriff B.J. Barnes over funding for guards to staff the new $100 million county jail.
Yesterday Barnes said if commissioners don’t fund new jailers, then he might not be able to open the jail.
To support his case, Barnes submitted reports of the type of behavior that goes on inside the county jail:
* An inmate attempting suicide by bashing his head against his cell while flooding it with water.
* An inmate found sleeping inside a hole he cut in his own mattress, an overpowering stench greeting the guards who retrieved him from it. It is the fourth mattress he has destroyed.
* Two inmates in a fight that had to be broken up by guards.
* An inmate who must be kept under armed guard in the crowded infirmary.“That’s a normal day in the life of a detention officer in Guilford County,” Barnes said.
That’s why there are actually fewer guards this year — 23 lost to resignation and one to termination, according to Barnes. He said the stress of doing the job in the currently understaffed and crowded jail is bad for his guards and bad for prisoners. His staff describes fecal matter smeared on walls, electric lights pulled out of solid concrete slabs by prisoners on drugs, and violence that can explode at any moment.
I noted how crazy it seems –as Scott Yost wrote —– that “some commissioners have even suggested looking into the idea of not moving inmates to the new jail until the economy picks up and the county has more money,” which in turn “would look way too much like the people running Guilford County have no idea what they’re doing.”
Now the sheriff is more or less making the same suggestion. Remember —no matter where you stand on the issue —- the voters approved the new jail, and once again they’re caught in the middle.
