With no inmates in the county jail, the Warren County Sheriff is asking residents to visit.

Last week, Aug. 1, Sheriff Martin Edwards had to ship all his inmates to the Mercer County Jail.

That’s after losing a correctional officer and not having the staff to cover the needed shifts to watch over those behind bars in the 100-year-old facility.

As he works through the hiring process, he posted on Facebook that those who call Warren County home to visit a place most people would rather avoid. 

Sheriff Edwards tells Local 4 News, he’s expecting it to take weeks, possibly months before the jail will reopen.

Speaking with several Warren County citizens, the general reaction was surprise their county didn’t have the people to keep the jail open when it was announced.

One man even said he didn’t know about the situation until it was mentioned to him on Aug. 8.

That’s why Sheriff Edwards is opening his door so residents can better understand his predicament.

Sheriff Edwards said, “Things change around here by the day. I had another officer come in the other day to tell me that he found employment with another agency.”

It’s an unusually quiet cell block for Sheriff Edwards as he provides a tour of the jail for Local 4 News.
But it’s not because he doesn’t have inmates for the cells, the issue is not enough people to man the jail.

Sheriff Edwards said, “In the last few years, we’ve turned through about 39 people in a small jail, so that’s a lot of turnover.”

Sheriff Edwards tells Local 4 News, most leave for another job with better pay often in nearby counties. 
As for Warren County, a correctional officer’s starting pay is little more than $12.80 an hour.

Sheriff Edwards said, “$15, $18, $20 is what you’re looking at, so obviously we’re clear at the other end of that, and that’s not going to get fixed in five minutes either.”
Sheriff Edwards said raising wages wouldn’t be simple. 

He tells Local 4 News, it would be a process involving the labor union, county board and finance committee.

Local 4 News is taking a closer at correctional officer pay looking at employment postings for neighboring counties.

In Knox County, the pay is $20.03 per hour.

In Mercer County, a correctional officer makes $34,266 a year.

The salary in Henry County is $39,083 a year. 

With these jail cells empty of inmates, Sheriff Edwards is hoping to fill this block with another type of population. Tourists and no handcuffs are required. His hope is residents will come in here and see the condition of the county jail and see that the issues he’s facing go beyond just personnel.

Sheriff Edwards said, “I can’t say it in a nice way. The jail is well over 100 years old. It is completely beyond its life capacity.”

From hard-to-replace aging equipment, constant rust and cracking and crumbling cement, Sheriff Edwards hopes citizens can see up close the needs of this 22-bed jail.

Sheriff Edward “The fact that we’re already overcrowded, we just need to look a new home.”

It has become common for the county to rely on out of county jails because they don’t have the room.

While they max is 22 people that number is often cut into when one block needs to be reserved for women, and some inmates can’t have anyone else in the cell.

“Our inmate population has grown substantially and it’s apparently sustaining itself. The facility is no longer big enough to hold all the ones we’ve got incarcerated here,” said Sheriff Edwards.

But that’s down the road. First, he’s just hoping for some more employees.

Sheriff Edwards said,  “We had an interview this morning, we’ve had other people come in.”

Even if the candidates are hired, it takes time before they’re ready to serve as a correctional officer.

“Find viable candidates, people I believe are going to stick around here, but I also have the added time and cost of sending them to school, so there’s six more weeks I’m without that person I’ve just hired, so you can see where we continue to have some difficulties in filling our shifts,” said Sheriff Edwards.

While the jail is closed for inmates, Sheriff Edwards is also making some repairs to the jail. 

As of Aug. 8, 26 Warren County inmates were being housed at the Mercer County Jail.

That is costing Warren County $40 a day per inmate.

For a month, Sheriff Edwards said the cost would be about $30,000 to Mercer County but saving by Warren County not operating their jail will provide some overall reduction although there is no way around the county having to pay out the fee.