The Jail Hit Piece | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Last week I wrote about the Chairman of the Beaufort County Board of County Commissioners, Jerry Evans, secretly requesting the Jail Administrator to write a report degrading our jail. I have read the report. It is a want list for long haired liberals.

    The jail is not intended to be a resort hotel or to bring aid and comfort to criminals. It is to keep dangerous people away from the public and for convicted criminals to serve up to 90 days. More than 90 days is the responsibility of the State prison system. I certainly support humane treatment of prisoners but the public has no responsibility to educate, provide routine medical services or for that matter to rehabilitate prisoners. We do not have to provide the law library that was requested. I do support making rehabilitative services available to those prisoners who want the service, provided it is done at no cost to the County.

    The report has 18 major headings. Almost all draw subjective conclusions and present opinions about the level of service the Beaufort County taxpayers should give. I will address some of these. Get out your crying towel.

    The first item says we are denying attorneys access to their clients. The room, attorney and prisoners meet in, is small but adequate. I have not seen even one attorney during the 16 years my office door has faced the jail going either in or out of the jail. Matter of fact some inmates complain their attorneys never see them until the day of the trial. Inmates out on bail have easy access to their attorney's office. Those in jail usually have free lawyers, paid for by you and me.

    Medical is harped on at several places. It seems that inmates cannot be put on a gurney and rolled to the nurse's station. My reply is that any prisoner who needs to be on a gurney should be at the hospital.

    There is no sink in the nurses station (we have two jail nurses) and there is not a large space to examine prisoners. This whole nurse thing is an invention of the liberal Beaufort County Board of County Commissioners. It seems they were sold on the idea that a healthy prisoner is a prisoner who will never violate the law again. The law does not require us to provide anything but emergency medical service to prisoners. So why are we spending about $500,000 per year for health services to prisoners?

    There is a complaint that the jail is not ADA (Americans for Disability Act).compliant. The ADA was invented by George Bush about 30 years ago long after this jail was built. This jail will never be ADA compliant. We send our prisoners who require ADA facilities (wheel chairs and special bath room facilities) to ADA compliant jails. Actually, most of them are sent home with an ankle bracelet. This whole issue is a tear jerking set up for the unknowing to support building anew ail.

    Classifying prisoners is another false issue. The present jail is over classifying prisoners at great expense to you. The jail is permitted for approximately 85 inmates. We have had as many as 120 in the jail. Over classifying is a way to send more inmates out of county which means greater expense to the county and less work for the jail. Sheriff Coleman has never shown tax payers respect for expense other than to falsely tell us how much money he is saying,.

    The report complains that we do not have a padded cell. We did at one time. What happened?

    There is a complaint about magistrates giving low bonds to control the jail population. Actually there is a national movement to lower bonds and save money in jails. Violent criminals are the exception.

    There is a complaint about the lack of a sprinkler system. The jail is in compliance with all of the laws and regulations of the State of North Carolina. This is a wish list item. It would be dumb to put sprinklers in this jail because of the low ceilings. Inmates would have easy access to them, and maintenance would be a night mare.

    Food service is talked about at length. It is not the responsibility of the tax payer to placate the delicate palate of these touchy-feely inmates. At one time the food was so good we had people trying to get into jail to get the food. We are only required to meet the dietary standards set by the state. I know of one jail that feeds ham sandwiches one day and cheese sandwiched the next, along with milk and fruit. If you want a good meal, stay out of jail.

    There are complaints about juvenile housing. We do not intend to house juveniles. They require special handling and we are not equipped for it. We jail very few juveniles over the course of a year. Those that have are almost always charged with violent crimes. The report tries to make one believe the county could make money housing juveniles. Don't you believe it. A whole new jail would have to be built.

    There is more talk that we could house state prisoners (incarcerated for more than 90 days) and make money. Do not believe it. We would have to build a whole new jail.

    In short, his was a hit piece presented by those who want a new jail.

    If we gave prisoners a speedy trial, 90 percent of these complaints would go away. We have 18 prisoners who have been in jail from six months to two years with no trial date set. This is injustice.

    Jerry Evans, Chairman of the Board secretly had this report written. It was presented by a county employee to the most politically active and liberal service club in town, the noon Rotary. If you heard a county employee making this liberal presentation would you not think it was sanctioned by the board of County Commissioners. We never saw it and the board did not know King Jerry was doing an unethical back room deal.

    Our past three chairmen never heard of ethics. King Gary Brinn was chairman when the County secretly hired lawyers to break the hospital trust fund and take 3.5 million dollars. King Frankie had the building inspector secretly insert himself into the destruction of the Belhaven Hospital. This single act destroyed the future of the Town of Belhaven. Now King Jerry is going to get you a new jail.

    None of what I have described above was approved by the Board of County Commissioners sitting in open session as required by law. The constant link to all of this is the County Manager who has the ethical duty and responsibility to make sure every commissioner is equally informed and to not carry out orders from the chairman without the approval of the majority of the board meeting in an open public session. The only powers the chairman has is to conduct the meeting. All other powers are usurped from the tax payer.