Jail alarmist Washington Daily News gets it wrong again | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Publisher's Note: This article originally appeared in the Beaufort Observer.

    The Saturday (6-8-13) front page and Sunday (6-9-13) editorial of the Washington Daily News is a fine example of how facts can be misinterpreted and spun to fit a political agenda. Had informed sources been interviewed the Daily News would at least have had more than one opinion. Within both articles there was only one set of opinion. They came predominately from one source: The Beaufort County Sheriff's Department. I guess the Daily News and the Sheriff knows all there is to know about electrical systems and their maintenance.

    There was an electrical problem in the jail. Now the Sheriff and the local mullet wrapper think we should build a new jail. The idea seems to be "if it is old or needs repair" we throw it away and buy a new one. The majority of the county commissioners have allowed the Sheriff to do this, so his jail is broke, he needs a new one. I wonder how many taxpayers in Beaufort County buy a new house when they have a problem with the electrical system?

    Based on information I have obtained from several knowledgeable people about this situation and my own personal experience in working with similar systems, we do not need to replace wiring and switch gear until we have identified which part is broken. At this time we are clueless about what caused this power outage. Even the Daily News admitted the outage occurred during a tropical storm. Those blinking lights we get during storms are usually caused by transmission lines coming too close to each other. This event by itself can cause electrical control systems to fail to function properly.

    A second power outage occurred Saturday night. Now we are doing the detective work of eliminating possible causes in order to determine specifically what needs to be repaired. Prisoners have been moved to another jail.

    In addition to the age of Court House switch gear, we have added a complexity by installing the new generator with interlocks into the local distributions system, the Court House, and with peak shaving. This is in addition to the jail back up generator being in that grid. There are also issues with stray currents, peaking currents and low voltage not just during storms. If we could identify the cause of this outage we would fix it. But some people have jumped to the conclusion that a new jail should be built because of these problems.

    There is a bum's rush to build a new jail. The Mullet Wrapper made the following statement in the Sunday June 8 Editorial: "Existing conditions at the jail are nothing more than a lawsuit waiting to happen." "The existing jail is outdated", and "Beaufort County will face a lawsuit that could result in the county paying damages in excess of what building a new jail could cost." None of these statements are necessarily true, but scare tactics. When was the last time you heard of a county being successfully sued over a jail? They are simply opinions that have been fed to the press by those who want a new jail. The Daily News has never bothered to confirm these statements by asking for a second opinion. It is true, any one of these statements could be correct on any given day. It is also true that anyone in Beaufort County could be struck by a meteorite and killed. The validity of these alarming statements lies in how many times these events have ever actually happened. They have been extremely rare.

    This year's annual Grand Jury jail inspection report was quite a bit different than past reports. For one thing it was two pages long and hand written, not typed. The report described conditions within the jail as being clean, humid, congested, with water problems at the showers, lighting concerns, with a small holding area, and the public has to come into the jail for fingerprinting. The report also said a new jail is recommend but did not give specifics of why.

    Hats off to our employees who work in the jail. They do a good job of working with prisoners. We know this work has a different kind of risk.

    What you don't hear much about is that the state sets standards for jails. The jail is inspected two times each year by the State Jail Inspectors. There are quarterly inspections by the Beaufort County Board of Health. Their reports do not demand a new jail or even discuss a new jail. They do talk about deficiencies which have always been dealt with to the satisfaction of the inspectors. For the most part the jail inspection reports talk about our maintenance and repair items, like bad paint, minor wall repairs, replacing bedding with holes, and plumbing in need of repair. I, along with Commissioners Gary Brinn, Robert Belcher and the County Manager toured the jail within a week of the Grand Jury. We were very concerned about the condition of plumbing at the showers and needed commode repairs. Steps have been taken to make these corrections. Maintenance and repairs are management issues, not reasons to spend millions on a new facility.

    Is our jail a nice place? Certainly not. But it should not be a nice place to be. No reasonable person would say a jail confinement should be a bed of roses. It is not supposed to be. Jails are always crowded places. Jailers are always at risk in every jail. They will be at risk in a brand new facility. Some inmates are violent criminals, and they will be a threat in whatever facility they are housed. The tax payers should not be expected to keep prisoners in the lap of luxury. The only expectation should be a clean bed, with no fear of attack from other prisoners, adequate food and basic toilet facilities. Those who want more should figure out how to say out of jail.

    Those who want a new jail seem to be more concerned about where the jail is to be built than how many prisoners it will hold, or how efficient it will be. The fact is that if the jail is constructed any where other than behind the court house it will become a private palace for law enforcement. The operations of law enforcement will no longer be in plain view of the public. Rumor has it an office will be built for each deputy along with an on-site gym. The magistrate's offices will be moved from the court house to the jail. It will not be long until someone decides to save money by building a court room(s) at the jail. Then the current courtrooms will be "old and inefficient" and we'll need more and it will make sense to move them to the jail site. Then the Clerk of Court's office will have to be moved. Then many of the lawyers will have to move. The court system, and all parts of law enforcement will then be behind barbed wire fences with the public loosing access and oversight. Down town Washington will change drastically.

    I, along with other commissioners, have toured more than five jails. It is clear to me that there are several ways to build jails. We have been told many times that the real cost of the jail is in operations. If the floor plans are well laid out we will save a lot of money in operations efficiency.

    The architect is proposing a larger jail than we need with room for 50 federal and state prisoners. We have done no studies to see whether or not there is a market for rented jail cells.

    The jail committee is bogged down on where the jail will be located because of the desire of some to make a major change in our heritage by moving the center of the City of Washington to a new location with a new courthouse complex

    There is political wheeling and dealing with accusations about meetings in which City of Washington officials have sold out by agreeing to build the jail in the industrial park. At this writing none of those accusations have been refuted. Equal time is offered to those who were accused by the Beaufort Observer of being involved in sneaky backroom dealing. Note that nobody has yet put forth a rational argument for building a jail away from the county office complex.

    As a result of the effort to build a new jail, several items of concern have been discovered. It is probable that every county in North Carolina has the same kinds of situations. We became aware that jail population was elevated because a significant number of cases were not being promptly called for trial. Some prisoners had been in jail for up to two and one half years. A lot of cases were jailed for more than six months. Some prisoners were jailed for a much longer time than their sentencing would be if convicted. Some courts, scheduled for a week, only scheduled enough cases for two or three days. More prisoners may be eligible for release on ankle bracelets than we are releasing. All criminal case trial dates are under the control of the District Attorney. However, holding only one session of Criminal Superior Court each month is a hindrance to speedy justice. Another obstacle to a speedy trial is the State Crime Laboratory. Up to a year and sometimes more is required too get samples examined. Private laboratories can do it in about six weeks. A lot of people are rotting in jail while the government proves how inefficient it is.

    If the Washington Daily News is going to lobby, they need to talk to more than the Sheriff's Department. Maybe they should just say they are lobbying for the Sheriff's Department.