OLD PROBLEMS CREEP UP AT SHELBY COUNTY JAIL

First I would like to thank the citizens of Shelby County for supporting me as your sheriff and county mayor for 16 years.

Serving eight years in each position was the highlight of my professional career. Prior to my election as sheriff in 2002, I served for 23 years with the U.S. Bureau of Prisons as warden in three federal prisons in Texas, Kentucky and Tennessee. After retiring I was appointed director of the Shelby County Division of Corrections under Mayor Jim Rout.

The Shelby County election of 2002 captured my attention because of numerous problems facing the Sheriff ’s Office. The incumbent sheriff was retiring in the midst of investigations questioning procedures for hiring deputies and a Justice Department inquiry into jail operations.

With my experience managing jails and prisons, I believed I could restore operational stability and budget discipline in our primary law enforcement agency.

We prevailed in the 2002 election and immediately implemented a series of changes that took five years and over $25 million to correct. With new leadership and enhanced training in both law enforcement and corrections, we received both professional recognition and national accreditation.

The advice I give to my successors as sheriff

Addressing conditions in the jail operation proved to be the greatest challenge. Across the United States, sheriffs have a dual responsibility for both law enforcement and jail operations.

We recognized early that our jail was costly to operate, overstaffed with significant staff turnover and a high degree of inmate violence. In time we were able to address and improve in each of these areas by changing our leadership team, enhancing training for jail

staff, addressing performance and attendance standards and implementing a direct supervision model requiring staff presence in all housing units. After five years, our crowning achievement came in front of a federal judge with the plaintiff ’s attorney, Justice Department Special Master and the Sheriff all agreeing that remedial action had been taken and the jail met constitutional standards. Shelby County was released from judicial oversight.

Since that time two sheriffs have followed me and I have given both the same advice.

The jail, if not properly managed, will become your greatest liability for three reasons:

h Jails and inmates are not politically popular thus positive political impact is minimal

h Therefore, those affected will exercise their legal right to petition the courts where the appeal will be addressed

h Tax dollars for maintenance and upkeep of government facilities are always limited and jails will have a lower funding priority compared with other demands across the community.

For these reasons, sheriffs must push harder and convince the public and funding sources of the importance of maintaining constitutional standards and understanding the consequences of failure.

Don’t be surprised if federal DOJ inquiry is forthcoming

The reason I mention this brief history of the Sheriff’s Office is because it appears that many of the problems we hear and read about today regarding the jail are a reminder of what we found in 2002. The changes implemented to supervise inmates, appropriately recruit and train personnel and ensure that constitutional standards are followed have been neglected and by outward appearances, have failed.

Legal appeals regarding medical care, nutritional standards and violent behavior are being filed and will be reviewed. And if the past is an indication, inquiries by the Justice Department may be forthcoming.

Based upon our history with the jail, all these recent events could have been foreseen and corrective action taken sooner.

Failure to react is the repetition of history. It is important now that our community support all efforts to improve conditions at the jail and then hold those in authority accountable.

PROVIDED BY BEN CRUMP A man detained at the Shelby County Jail sits on the bottom bunk of a cell. Civil rights attorney Ben Crump said the picture was taken in 2023 and that it raises questions about cleanliness beyond the cell of a man who died covered in bed bugs and feces in early January.

STU BOYD II/THE COMMERCIAL APPEAL Attorney Ben Crump comforts the mother of Ramon Mcghee, Lisa Shahan Choat, at a press conference in response to Mcghee being found dead covered in lice, bed bugs and feces at the Shelby County Criminal Justice Center at Mississippi Boulevard Christian Church on Feb. 9.