A central Kentucky county detention center is housing close to twice the number of inmates it’s designed to hold. The Madison County Jailer doesn’t expect a state corrections emergency regulation to ease overcrowding in the short term.
State corrections officials last week implemented an emergency regulation to speed up the release of certain paroled offenders. Madison County Jailer Doug Thomas says the Richmond jail is a 184 bed facility. He says the inmate count currently stands at just over 380 men and women. Many of them sleep on mats and its stressful for inmates and guards. “It’s very difficult to step over and then, again, we have more altercations and fighting,” explained Thomas.
Thomas says his jail has around 50 state inmates. He says 30 inmates have been sent to other county jails, but Thomas says that carries a cost, as much as $30 dollars a day for each one. Many county jails throughout the state face the same problem of overcrowding.
With a growing community, the jailer believes the downtown detention center will have to expand as well in the years ahead. "You’re not gonna stop all the drug users or drug trafficking. You’re not gonna stop it all. You’re gonna slow it down by making a lot of arrests, but these people will come to jail, and our numbers are gonna grow,” Thomas said. “It’s simple math.”
The Richmond jailer estimates about 90% of inmates in the Madison County jail are there for drug related offenses. He says County Judge Executive Reagan Taylor has proposed building a drug recovery facility.
