NCJ Number
185795
Journal
Sheriff Volume: 52 Issue: 6 Dated: November-December 2000 Pages: 20-21
Date Published
November 2000
Length
2 pages
Annotation
This article presents an Arkansas sheriff's perspective on managing jail inmates.
Abstract
The article presents one sheriff's views on how to avoid incidents of violence by jail inmates. Three reasons for inmate fights, an average of three per day, were television, cigarettes, and candy. Inmates were fighting over which program they would watch, and were stealing cigarettes and candy from one another. The article considers provision of such "frills" an offense to the victims of crime, who may have been robbed and then are taxed to pay for such comforts for convicted offenders. This sheriff's concept of a well-run jail is one without television, radios, cigarettes, cigars, chewing tobacco, newspapers, magazines, comics, razors, deodorant, candy and gum. His jail has no commissary. The jail serves three cold meals per day, and the inmates do not get coffee, tea, juice or regular milk. The inmates can choose either water or powdered milk, one of two choices available to them. The other choice is to follow the rules or stay locked down. In this way, county residents will know that their tax money will not go to provide offenders with the comforts of home.