County jail officials say they are encouraged about a recent court ruling designed to remove state inmates from county facilities. They aren't telling those inmates to pack their bags just yet, though. I'd hope the department of corrections complies with this ruling, but this has been tried before and it didn't help a lot,'' Lawrence County Sheriff Grady Rose said. I'm not getting too excited. I've seen this happen before,'' added Chief Deputy Tommy Wooten of the Marion County Sheriff's Department.
Every county jail is overcrowded.
In his ruling, Shashy said the state has violated a 1999 agreement that state inmates could not be kept in county jails longer than 30 days. Shashy also noted that since 1999, the number of state inmates being housed in county facilities has increased dramatically. As of May 4, there were 1,964 state inmates in county jails past the 30-day order, officials said. A clerk in Shashy's office said Monday that the ruling refers to all state-ready inmates being held in county facilities. The clerk said these inmates are ones who are awaiting transfer to the state prison system.