If all the pieces fall into place as planned, Freestone County Jail may be repopulated as soon as July or August, at the earliest.
After several meetings discussing the jail’s depopulation and the stress this situation has caused for area law enforcement agencies, Sheriff Jeremy Shipley gave this announcement on Monday, May 6, 2019.
“Our main concern is figuring out what is the plan and pathway to get this resolved. The current situation is leaving our communities unprotected,” explained Teague City Administrator/Secretary Theresa Prasil to Freestone County Commissioners at the May 1st meeting.
“There is also a concern of burnout on our officers because of all the overtime required to facilitate this,” she continued. “There is much more than salaries to discuss. What is the time frame and plan of correction for booking in and out here at the jail?”
“We are asking that everyone come together to get the jail back open for booking so we can protect our communities and for officer safety,” Prasil concluded.
Nate Smith, City Administrator for the City of Fairfield also spoke to Commissioners, saying, “The Mayor and two Councilmen are here just to show the seriousness of the situation and how it affects not only Fairfield, but also the other surrounding cities.”
“I know this is a situation none of us want to be involved with, however, the situation has been thrust upon us. We need to get together to try to get some type of resolution so we can end this,” he concluded.
According to Sheriff Shipley, the jail currently employs four jailers, of which, only one knows the booking in/out procedures and only two are licensed jailers. He says the booking process takes at least three to six weeks to train, depending on the person and how fast they learn.
Commissioner Precinct #3-Mike Daniels stated that, “We need to bring this to an end! I’m willing to do whatever it takes to end this because it’s costing a lot of unnecessary money and hardship on people. We need to come together to solve this.”
Judge Linda Grant scheduled a workshop between the County and area law enforcement agencies for Monday, May 6th at 2:00 p.m.
During the short workshop, Sheriff Shipley advised that two courthouse employees with jailer’s licenses, Larry Jones and Steve Black, are now being trained on the booking in/out procedures to hopefully be able to offer this service during certain daytime hours throughout the week to help alleviate some of the stress on the local police departments. The hope is that they will begin doing this sometime within the next two or three weeks. However, this will only be a temporary fix.
The Sheriff and Chief Deputy are currently looking at six applicants for hire, and plans are to have them complete the hiring process by May 19th so they may begin a State Certified Jailers’ course on May 20th in McLennan County.
This class is scheduled to be finished on June 17th; and if the candidates pass, they would come into the jail with a certified jailer’s license. At that point, they would be trained for three to six weeks in jail procedures.
The County Jail needs to have nine employees with a jailer’s license, able to perform booking in/out procedures, before the jail can be repopulated.
