In fact, according to County Judge Mark Barr, the increase — which has peaked in recent weeks around the mid-80s — has been expected.

“The way we're handling the jail, we'll probably stay right around that 70 to 80 inmate count for a while,” said Barr. “What we're hoping is to clean things up. And we're sending a message to these people. You're going to have to do time. When they get out, hopefully they won't commit any more crimes, or they'll move. We're really hoping they will just quit committing crimes.”

Barr said pressure in recent years from the State Jail Commission has forced jail officials to keep head counts unnaturally low, and while the commission has approved the current jail right up to it's 96-bed stature, he believes word on the street is what will bring those current totals down.

“There was a period before the construction of the new jail and when I came into office where we really had to watch our Ps and Qs,” said Barr. “We were having to send our inmates out and that was costing the county a tremendous amount of money. Now we don't face that same problem.

“A good example are the women inmates. Women are a little more difficult than a man your contending with to send to jail. Sometimes they have more issues than a man has, and you would send them off to be incarcerated (at another county jail facility) and the other county would come back and tell us she's having problems, and they couldn't handle her anymore. There was no place to put them, and that's sort of how it's been. Once that gets out on the streets, they start realizing they can use a woman to do their drug dealing and things like that and she won't have to do any jail time. They figure we'll just put her on probation... because we just didn't have a place to put her.

“That was the situation we were in. Now that has changed, and I hope word of it gets out on the street that it's going to remain changed, that we do have a place to put them, and if they commit a crime, they are going to have to do some time for it.”

The jail, which was constructed as the result of a $11.57 million bond election approved by voters, can actually hold up to 112 inmates, according to Sheriff Stan Parker, giving the facility plenty of room to move inmates as needed.

“The 96-bed capacity doesn't take into account the holding areas we have,” said Parker. “We can keep inmates in those holding cells for up to 48 hours, so even with our head count in the mid to upper 80s, we're still not in danger of overcrowding at this time.”

Contact Staff Writer Thomas Jenkins at 263-7331 ext. 232 or by e-mail at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it