Taking another look at the jail

Happy Tuesday! My jail story:

Ha! Caught ya there. Thought I was about to detail my life of crime, didja?

No, my jail experience does not include actual incarceration. I’ve never entered the jail without free access to leave whenever I want.

---

Many of my 12-step friends have jail or prison experiences in their past lives. As we often say, there are only two likely outcomes for a true alcoholic/addict without recovery: locked up or covered up.

It’s only through God’s grace that my drinking life didn’t include a night or two — or worse — behind bars.

But I’ve always held a keen interest in the county jail, which makes the current scenario even more enlightening.
​
As reported in the Chronicle and numerous other places, the Citrus County Sheriff’s Office and federal authorities have made numerous arrests in a contraband bribe scheme involving numerous inmates and jail employees.

Sheriff Dave Vincent, a man who wears integrity on his sleeve, is astounded that those whose jobs are to protect citizens and inmates would sell their souls for a few pennies. He says more arrests are coming.

CoreCivic, which runs the jail on the county’s behalf, faced challenges even before these recent arrests. The company has had a staffing problem for well over a year; each County Commission meeting includes an update on staffing, and the company is fined for not meeting contractual obligations.

Vincent is ready for the sheriff’s office to take it back. He told the County Commission his team will study the costs and present a proposal.

If Vincent’s numbers hold true, it could be a significant political and community move. The jail has had a private operator for 30 years.

So, let’s talk about it.

The county jail stood in downtown Inverness next to the Old Courthouse when I arrived in 1987. The jail was constantly overcrowded, so one day the senior judge walked into a County Commission meeting and said he’d toss all the politicians in a crowded jail cell if they didn’t make a move pronto.

That resulted in the “jailatorium,” a fun memory for us long-timers. The Citrus County Auditorium became a temporary jail until the new jail was built in Lecanto.

The new 400-bed jail opened in 1992 under the control of the Citrus County Sheriff’s Office. I don’t recall the details of why the county turned to a private company for its jail, but that’s what happened in 1995 when Corrections Corporation of America took over. CCA became CoreCivic in 2005; the company and county most recently renewed the contract in 2020.

The county pays CoreCivic a per-inmate charge. The jail also houses federal inmates, and that pays for some of it. As you can see, I’m not the jail budget guru.

In fact, I really don’t know much about the jail at all. Most people wouldn’t, right?

I have visited this jail three times. In 2004, my Leadership Citrus class toured the jail and ate lunch. The warden pointed out a few of the more notorious defendants in jail awaiting trial. That’s about as close to those guys as I wanted to get.

Later, in alcohol recovery, I participated in a few 12-step meetings at the jail. Strange experience…always happy to get there and deliver the message, and always happy to leave. A friend who recently avoided jail time calls it “breathing God’s free air.”

I couldn’t tell you whether CoreCivic is a good steward of the jail. I know Citrus County seems to cycle through wardens; the current one has just 13 months under his belt. One of his predecessors stood up at a Chamber of Commerce lunch a few years back and said the Citrus jail had more inmates with drug and alcohol problems than anywhere he’s ever been.

Many have suggested in recent years that the county should take a deeper dive into bringing the jail back under sheriff control. No one took it seriously until Sheriff Vincent said it. The County Commission will gladly hand this complexity to the sheriff if the numbers work.

Not just numbers, though. Sheriff Vincent has absolutely backed up his “one community, one goal” campaign approach to the office. I mean…have you noticed how tightly aligned the community and sheriff’s office is these days? Eighteen months on the job and it’s rockin’.

Can he bring a similar approach to the county jail? Hmmm.

We’re in the early stages, so who knows? Devil’s always in the details.

That’s it for today. Have a great one, friends.

​Join the discussion on our Facebook page.
​
Enjoying the blog? Please consider supporting it at Venmo, PayPal, or Patreon.