Clark County Sheriff David Turner said Tuesday that he plans to ask the Quorum Court for extra jail staffing. The request stems from safety issues.

“I haven’t talked to them yet, but I’d like to talk to the Quorum Court to see about keeping a minimum of two jailers on per shift,” Turner said.

Clark County Judge Ron Daniell said that 2009 looks like a tough year for revenue and that the money may not be available for extra jailers. In order for Turner to create new positions, Daniell said the sheriff will have to go before the budget committee.

There is now only one jailer overseeing all the inmates on any given shift, and there need to be more, he said. Turner said this poses a security issue because, if the on-duty jailer is booking in a new inmate, there is no one else to supervise the prisoners. “We’ve got one jailer taking care of 32 people. You have a better ratio in a daycare than you do in the jail. It’s a security problem.”

Chief Deputy Tim Patterson said the biggest problem with finding people to fill a jailer’s position is the pay. “Our jailers start out at $18,000 a year.” Turner said, “By the time you take out taxes, 5 percent for retirement and insurance — if they have a family — they’re living off of about $7,000 a year.”

Patterson said, “It’s really hard to fill a jailer’s position because of that very reason.”

Turner said one female jailer, who was also a deputy, left the sheriff’s office to work for the City of Arkadelphia as a dispatcher. “She is making more than what my patrolmen make,” he said. In discussing the matter with the sheriff of Hot Spring County, Turner said he discovered that jailers there start out making $21,000 per year, “and that’s just about what our officers start out at.”

Though county employees received a $1,000 raise for 2009, the increase only affects employees hired prior to the Quorum Court’s vote to award the raise. Turnover is another problem. “We went through 20 employees in 2007,” Turner said, “and we probably went through eight last year. Everyone is going to look for higher paying jobs, and I don’t blame them one bit.”

Patterson said, “I don’t think people realize the problems we go through. We have one certified deputy that is on duty this morning. He comes on at 7 a.m., and he’s by himself until noon.”

This deputy, he said, is responsible for taking inmates to the doctor and transporting inmates in other counties to court hearings in Clark County. “All the time he’s gone, we don’t have a man on the street. That’s why the sheriff gets calls, and I get calls, and we take our criminal investigators — who should be doing something else — to go out and answer 911 calls.”

An extra jailer or deputy, he said, would put a deputy on the street to respond to calls.

When a jailer is booking a new inmate, as long as 30 minutes might pass without any supervision in the jail, he said. Some inmates take this opportunity to damage the jail by ripping paneling off the walls or even burning holes in cell windows.

Prisoners communicate with their friends outside the jail to bring them prohibited articles. The prisoner first rips a bed sheet and fashions it into a long string and ties a sock at the end. He then slips the sock through the hole onto the ground outside of the jail. Once the passerby places the article in the sock, the inmate simply pulls it up the wall and through his window.

Patterson said he has viewed surveillance footage of prisoners getting prohibited articles.

“From the time the guy came to the wall, put the stuff in the sock that the prisoner had let down, to the time it was pulled into the cell, 10 seconds (had elapsed). That’s how long it took him to get the stuff in the jail. If you weren’t paying attention, you would never see them come or never see them go.

“It’s a dangerous situation right now with the holes in the wall. What really concerns me the most is getting weapons into the jail, because we’ve got inmates who have been accused of murder. It’s a dangerous situation for us and for the public. We need to eliminate that situation as quickly as possible, and the sheriff is doing his best.”

Some prisoners have been caught, and others furnishing prohibited articles have been caught.

Turner said, “When we get a hole burned in a window, we charge them with it, and it goes to District Court.” There are two people assigned to each cell. “The last five cases we sent to District Court got thrown out because we didn’t see them do it. Even though there’s only two people in that cell and there’s only two people responsible for that cell, they were let go.”

The sheriff’s office purchased fencing material to place along the outside perimeter. The 10-foot-tall chain-link fence will feature 1 additional foot of barbed wire fence that should deter the furnishing of prohibited articles, Turner said.

Anything the sheriff’s office does not provide an inmate is considered prohibited — including ink pens, tobacco or cell phones. Furnishing a prohibited article is a crime that can range from a Class B to a Class D felony charge. Depending on the article that is given to an inmate, someone found guilty of this crime could face anywhere from six to 20 years in prison, Turner said.

The fenced-in area will also provide a place for prisoners to go in case of an evacuation, he said. In the event of a fire alarm, inmates now have to go either to the exercise area or across the street to the Red Cross building.

The sheriff’s office is also in the process of installing a new camera system for the jail. “We are installing a couple extra cameras that have not been up. We’re also moving some around because of blind spots.”

In addition, other cameras will be purchased for other needed areas, he said.

Since one inmate allegedly tore a surveillance camera off the wall in the jail’s Day Room in December, that cell block has been on lockdown. The camera will have to be completely replaced because the parts are no longer available for that model.

Cameras, he said, cannot replace a jailer. “You can put up all the cameras you want, but they really don’t replace manpower. We need another jailer per shift.

“We just have time to react. We don’t have time to be proactive. We really can’t get out and patrol because we’re too busy answering calls. When you’ve got an officer busy transporting an inmate from Fayetteville to here, you’ve lost eight hours.”

Hiring additional staff calls for putting a dent in the county’s budget. “I understand you’ve got to have the taxbase to pay the salaries, but you’ve got to look for the safety of the people here — the safety of the community.”

Patterson said, “We’re doing the best we can with what we’ve got, and I think we’ve done an excellent job of keeping our prisoners in jail.”

The jail was built in 1986 — two years before state jail regulations were created, Turner said. “Our jail is over 20 years old, and things are starting to fall apart. We’re trying to fix them the best we can, but it’s fixing to cost the county some money.”

Some items that need to be replaced or fixed, he said, include the heating and cooling system and the jail’s plumbing.

“We have plumbers up here nearly every day.” The toilets in each cell also need to be replaced, he said. The cost to replace the toilets was $88,000, he said, and the amount he was quoted to replace the cooling pipes added up to $100,000.

Jailer fired, jail administrator suspended after log ‘falsified’

One jailer was recently fired because he failed in his duties. “He had no idea where the trustees were,” Turner said. “They were running all over the jail ... it’s just not acceptable, and I’m not going to put up with it.”

A female inmate also claimed that inmates had been bringing the female inmates towels while they were showering. “That did not happen,” Turner said after he and Patterson reviewed surveillance video.

The inmate’s other complaint was that she and the other female prisoner were not receiving showers as often as they should or receiving time in the exercise area as they should have been.

“That part is true,”  Turner said. “They were not getting showers or exercise like they should.”

Inmates are given showers three times per week because there is only one jailer on duty, leaving no time to allow each prisoner a daily shower. There are no female jailers, so the female inmates depend on the jail administrator (a female) or a female dispatcher to allow them a shower. The dispatchers, he said, stay busy with 911 calls and communicating with the deputies on duty.

The complaints had not been investigated because the jail administrator was not keeping a sufficient jail log, Turner said.

After the inmate’s attorney made the accusation, however, Turner sought the jail log sheet.

“At that point, we were told that not everything was logged,” he said. “About an hour later, we came up with two pieces of notebook paper that documented the times of the showers.”

After further reviewing the surveillance video, Turner found that the female inmates were not given showers on days the administrator documented. “In my opinion that was falsifying a record. That’s unacceptable.”

The jail administrator has been suspended for the actions “until we can decide what to do with that.”