Now commission has nearly doubled the jail staff  from 29 to 53. Total, annual cost to operate the jail will now exceed four million dollars. so what in the world is going on? Has Loudon County become den of thieves? Not hardly. Yes, Loudon County, just like every other jurisdiction in the country, has seen an increase in crime but that's not the main problem in Loudon County. Our inmate population problems are caused in great part by the judicial system.

At the end of every month, all jails have to report the jail head count to the Tennessee Department of Corrections. At the end of each month, the report provides the jail's population.  The report will fluctuate from month to month. The report lists TDOC felons, local felons, other felons, federal and other convicted misdemeanors, pretrail felony and pretrail misdemeanors. It also gives the current population, number of beds and how many inmates to beds available and how many over or under the jail is for inmates to beds. Let's look at the last report for Loudon County.  Below is a summary of the first five months this year.

Clearly, the largest number of inmates sitting in the jail, can't make bond and are waiting to go to trial. And the largest number of those are waiting to go to state, criminal court. Criminal court is part of the 9th judicial district serving Loudon County, Roane County, Morgan County and Meigs County. Criminal Court meets in Loudon County three times per year, first Monday in the months of March, July and November. Only holding court three times per year creates a large backlog of inmates waiting to go to court.

There is a much smaller backlog in the county misdemeanor court but with two full time judges, should there be any backlog? Don't know.

The next big number are convicted felons waiting to go to state prison. We hold these prisoners for the state until they can find bed space in state prison. The state does pay $35 per day we keep their inmates but it costs about $65 per day to house them. Of course, the state is in no big hurry to get their prisoners. They'd rather leave them in local custody and let local tax payers foot the bill.

Not sure why any other felons are serving their time in our jail. We're just suppose to be holding convicted misdemeanors. So essentially, if the courts were working effectively, and the state would pick up their prisoners, our need for so many jail beds would be greatly reduced as well as the cost of maintaining the jail.

It's past time for the state to step up their game and take the pressure off the local sheriff's, jails and tax payers.