I am in the process of compiling information on the death that occurred recently in the Guilford County Jail.  It is unfortunate that our Sheriff-- B.J. Barnes saw it necessary to issue a press release on a fight that occurred in the jail about a week ago, however did not think it was worthy or necessary to share information concerning the death of a female inmate that happened under his watch.  What comes to mind is that B.J. may have been attempting to politically position the fighting incident as a way of convincing the public that the jail is over crowded and justifies the need for another 1040 bed jail.  He also took time in his press statement to attack several commissioners who are attempting to fine alternative ways of incarceration for our judicial system to consider using.

The inmate that died in the County jail, in my opinion would not have been in the jail at all if we had the alternative ways of incarceration in place, that some of us Commissioners have been advocating for and our Sheriff has been fighting against. 

My initial investigation has found that the inmate was a 42 year old female that was booked on April 24, 2007 on a misdemeanor charge of attempting to steal a packet of fish valued at $5.09.  She was placed under a $550.00 bond, with another bond of $50.00 for failure to appear in court on another charge.  The court records that I have obtained., clearly show that this person had a serious drug problem and some mental problems. 

With her record she would have been an ideal case for Drug Court, or the new Mentally ill Court.  I am not insinuating that the jail or the Sheriff are responsible for her death.  However, I am taking this opportunity to question the lack of a system being in place to detect the problems of inmates immediately upon their arrest and if such a system was in place there could have been a possible chance that this inmate would not have had to die in our jail?

I have also found out, that the Public Defendant that was assigned to her case has been on the job for only one month, and should have asked the court for a bond to allow this inmate to be released from jail on bond, but he did not.  The inmate's court date was set for May 15, 2007.  She was arrested on April 24, 2007.  That means that the inmate would have had to remain in jail for 23 days before she was to appear in court.  Does that make any sense at all? 

The average cost for a day's stay in jail is estimated to be $79.00 per day.  Therefore it would have costed the tax payers of this county $1,817.00 to keep this inmate behind bars for stealing a packet of food worth only $5.09.

I met with Wheaton Casey, the Director of Pretrial Services on this morning for about an hour and a half.  She shared a lot of information with me concerning the challenges that her department is facing in dealing with their case load and the court system.  She has just hired an additional seven case workers and will be hiring two more in the next three weeks or so.

I have asked her to provide me with court records of every person who has been arrested and processed through our jail system within the past 90 days.  I have also asked her to give me the records of everyone who is presently in the jail, what they are charged with and the amount of bond that they are under.

I will keep you updated on my findings as they become available.  It is my understanding that requested information is about 1500 pages-- just for the current inmates. But I am committed to going through every page, on every case.  Stay tuned!