Dougherty Sheriff discusses changes at jail

ALBANY — The Dougherty County Jail is in the process of replacing ceramic toilets in inmates’ cells with stainless steel ones to battle an ongoing issue at the facility, according to Sheriff Kevin Sproul.

Sproul, accompanied by Dougherty County Sheriff’s Captain Craig Dodd, told the Kiwanis Club of Dougherty County “We have a phenomenon going on throughout the jail now, and that’s how many ceramic toilets you can break and knock out windows. We just went in front of the (Dougherty County) commissioners…asking to replace 20 more ceramic toilets with stainless steel toilets. When that jail was built and opened in 1995 I don’t think any of us had the foresight to see coming down the road we were going to get violent young inmates who want to destroy toilets.”

Sproul further explained, “It’s a sink and toilet you sit on built in together, and they (inmates) will sit there and shake it off the anchor bolts in the concrete until they break it, or smash it on the floor and then they try to break out the glass in the cells or they use it as weapons. We’re seeing an increase in that.”

The sheriff said the installation of 171 surveillance cameras in the detention facility hopefully will cut down on destruction by jail residents, in addition to increasing safety for both officers and inmates, “With this new camera system we’ll be able to prosecute more of these inmates for destroying property.”

“You may not believe it,” Sproul said, “but before the new system there were no cameras in the jail complex.”

Sheriff Sproul also reported the DSCO’s “Beyond Scared Straight” program continues to be successful. “We had our third one this year. We’ve turned around a little over 80 percent of those kids we’ve worked with.”

The initiative has gained national and international attention, according to Sproul. “We’ve had a crew out of England contact us who want to fly into Albany to do a “Beyond Scared Straight”, or fly us to England to do one over there. They have nothing like that over there.” Also, he added, “We’ve been contacted by people from Detroit to New Orleans, all over the country about this program.”

Routine duties have kept the department busy in 2015. Sproul provided some current numbers on things his office has responsibility for: 8,739 criminal warrants served; 21,253 civil papers served; 912 evictions (where a deputy stands by as contents are removed from a residence); 9,512 security checks performed on homes and businesses. Also, the county jail averages about 678 inmates daily, said Sproul; the low this year was 629 and the current number was 688. That’s an improvement, considering that when Sproul took office in January 2009 there were “right at 1,000” inmates.

Sproul said he has worked with judicial and correctional officials “to try to reduce that number, because on any given day it’s (costing) about $42 a day to house an inmate in the Dougherty County Jail,, so we try to find ways to reduce our inmate population. But, we also have to keep our citizens safe. That’s a tough balancing act.”

A community outreach program by the DCSO, Shop with a Sheriff, will take place December 22, Sheriff Sproul revealed. The annual event provides underprivileged or troubled youth with lunch and Christmas shopping..

Captain Dodd oversees DCSO’s four-person investigative division. He revealed a troubling trend witnessed by his office of children or grandchildren stealing money or prescription drugs from their parents or grandparents while the older adults aren’t present.

“It’s very common nowadays for teenagers to get information and sell that to drug dealers, who then plan identity theft against you,” Dodd said.

Dodd said prescription drugs should be secured or disposed of. Some drugs, such as the painkiller Oxycontin, sell for as much as $30 per tablet on school or college campuses.

Dodd also warned about “skimmers”, devices planted inside ATMs that can record information on a bank ATM card. In a recent local incident, a video camera recorded a suspect disabling the alarm and dismantling an ATM at a bank, installing the skimmer inside, then putting it all back together and leaving. He returned about six hours later and removed the skimmer.

“After that we had cases from Colorado to Texas to California of all the people who went up and used that ATM during that night and had everything copied off their ATM cards and were being used all over the country.”

Dodd advised that people keep a regular check on bank and credit accounts. “If you have odd charges on your account, immediately notify the bank.”