Dec 19, 2002 By Amy Karpinsky 4 min read

The warden of the Fayette County Prison reported that the inmate population has declined for the first time in three months. Warden Larry Medlock told the county prison board on Wednesday that the average population for the month had dropped from 248 to 232 inmates. And as of Wednesday morning, the population stood at 221 inmates. Medlock said the population is down nearly 2 percent, compared to the previous year, and dropped 6.9 percent in November.

The capacity for the facility is 252 inmates and the county is currently not paying to rent any cells in other counties to house inmates. Medlock said the number of female inmates dropped from 37 to 20, which also helped. “Hopefully, it will continue to go down,” Medlock said.

As a way to further decrease the prison population, District Attorney Nancy D. Vernon said that prisoners with state sentences need to be shipped out to state correctional facilities. She said 21 percent of the inmate population is comprised of inmates that the state failed to pick up.

Vernon explained that any sentence of more than 23 months should be a state sentence. However, she said problems occur when an inmate receives a sentence such as two six-to-12-month sentences and the state doesn’t want to claim the prisoner. Medlock said he will continue to work to ensure that all prisoners who are supposed to be sent into the state system are taken to the proper place.

“We don’t want to keep state dead weight on our nickel,” said county commissioner Sean M. Cavanagh. Vernon added that the state facilities are becoming overcrowded, as well, but if someone should be doing state time, they should not be in a county facility. “Twenty-one percent is one fifth of the population,” Vernon said.

Cavanagh pointed out that Vernon has already helped with reducing the population by implementing rehabilitation programs for DUI offenders, as opposed to sending them to jail.

In addition to the DUI rehabilitation programs, Cavanagh said the new prison annex will save the taxpayers money. County commissioner Ronald M. Nehls said the annex hasn’t saved money yet, but it will. Cavanagh said the important thing is that now the county is paying for its own annex, instead of in the past when it rented cells in other counties, helping those counties pay for their facilities.

Warden said the annex is working the way it should. He said the county is keeping about 60 inmates there to leave space available in the event inmates with two-day DUI sentences need to be brought in.

As a way to cut back on future overtime costs, county controller Mark Roberts suggested that an extra one or two officers could be scheduled for each shift. He said that, in the first half of the year, overtime costs were $1,700 and that figure has jumped to $5,100 in the second half of the year.

Although there are 10 part-time corrections officers slots, currently only two are filled. Medlock said he hopes to hire an additional four part-time officers soon. He said, with sick leave and other absences, it may be a good idea to schedule one or two more officers per shift in order to cut back on overtime costs.

Medlock said he has a lot of applications and should be able to find some suitable candidates for hire. Cavanagh said he agreed with Roberts and the county should have a commitment to part-time officers to get them more hours.

In personnel items, the board accepted the resignation of full-time corrections officer James Eicher, whose last day will be Dec. 26. Medlock said Eicher is leaving to take a job with the state.

Part-time officer William Cobin Jr. will replace Eicher. Following a brief executive session, the board approved a motion that it no longer would utilize the services of part-time officer Robert Neverdale, due to misconduct.