Rural jails facing challenges in East Tennessee

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (WVLT) — The Campbell County Jail is still looking to hire more staff.

While the numbers have gotten better over the last few years, they’re still seeing challenges in hiring and keeping people staffed in a rural county.

“In Campbell County, we will never be able to pay what Anderson County can pay or Knox County,” said Sheriff Wayne Barton.

Barton said a corrections officer can start out at $15.65 an hour, while in Anderson County, they can make $21.25 an hour for the same job. That’s why he said there’s been a struggle to find staff for the jail over the years, which leads to a bigger concern for safety.

“If you step foot in this place and you’re not at least a little bit nervous, you need to go home,” said Sergeant Christina Goodman, who has worked at the jail for years.

Goodman said she’s been hit in the face and attacked by inmates several times at work, citing being short-staffed and outnumbered by inmates as a reason for safety concerns.

More money can solve the staffing issues, which have proven hard to come by in rural counties. Barton said it comes down to how the county government allocates money, and giving officers raises and increasing pay would likely mean something like repaving roads would be pushed back or neglected.

That option, along with raising taxes, has been something that county leaders won’t budge on.

In Cocke County, they’ve been working to replace an aging and outdated jail for several years, but money has been an issue.

“Funding the jail is probably the number one problem facing the county at this time,” said Cocke County Mayor Rob Mathis.

According to Mathis, to make this new jail a reality, they would need around $70 million. They have the site plans and a piece of land ready to go, but the money isn’t there.

Mathis and others are working to find alternative solutions to help pay for the new jail, and Sheriff CJ Ball is seeing the benefits of using grants and state funding available for rural counties like theirs.

Just a few weeks ago, the jail in Cocke County received a $150,000 grant to install a body scanner, which helps check inmates for drugs they could be bringing into the facility.

“This right here is going to be 110% better,” said Sheriff Ball.

According to Ball, drugs coming into the jail have created problems for years, with unruly inmates that cause a risk to their health and the safety of corrections officers.

There’s no easy answer for fixing the issues that rural counties face in their jails with a lack of county dollars, so these sheriffs and jail administrators continue to work to find creative ways to hire people while upgrading their facilities.

As far as the Cocke County Jail goes, there’s no firm timeline on when it might be ready to be built as county leaders still search for more money.

If you’re interested in helping with staffing shortages in rural jails, click the links here for Campbell County or Cocke County.