JONESBORO, Ga. — After over a decade, 11Alive was granted an exclusive look inside the Clayton County Jail ahead of the sheriff asking for over $10 million for improvements to the facility.
The jail opened in 2000, and it's been deteriorating ever since. Clayton County Sheriff Levon Allen wants to clean up issues to keep inmates and correctional officers safe.
“All of our stabbings that have occurred based on something they have broken away from the actual facility," Allen said, adding that an inmate made a large, sharp shank from items already inside this month.
And on Tuesday, Allen plans to stand before commissioners asking for $14 million to improve safety, overcrowding, and deteriorating jail conditions.
“The inmates were able to manipulate this from the handicapped room in the showers," Allen said, holding a grab bar in the bathroom. “When you remove this and work this on the wall, this becomes a long sword, a long machete,"
And the contraband isn't just from inside the jail.
“Like Mission Impossible, they were able to cut the glass, poke the hole through and have a hole," he said, adding that people would then break into the jail to give inmates contraband.
Aside from the communal areas inside the jail, the door locks and cells also show age. Another problem in the jail, the sheriff said, is overcrowding.
“We can house comfortably two inmates to a bed, about 1,500 to 1,540 inmates," Allen said. "Our daily capacity is roughly about 1,800 to 1,900 inmates.”
Allen wants to reduce overcrowding and cramped conditions before the situation gets worse.
“We don't want to get to where we're in the news every day or stuff like that," Allen said.
The sheriff said the third major issue is the crumbling equipment inside the jail. The facility has four washers to clean the clothing of 2000 inmates, but Allen said only two are working right now. And the dryers aren't a better story, causing clothing to be tossed out.
"We throw it away because if we can't get this to the proper temperature to kill the bugs," Allen said. "We don't want to put it back into to infest the other inmates or the other laundry."
Allen also said the toilets and drinking fountains use the same unit, which must be redone.
“They need to have access to fresh, clean drinking water," Allen said.
These improvements, Allen believes, would keep inmates unharmed during their time in jail, emphasizing that Clayton County Jail is a pretrial facility, so only about 350 of the 1,900 inmates have been convicted.
“Everybody that comes to my jail should be treated with respect and with dignity," Allen said. "If my brother or sister got arrested here today, I don't want them to get shanked or get killed or get eaten alive by somebody by some type of insect. That's not the goal here.”