Loss of Jailers Creates Compliance Issues for County Jail

TYLER � The Smith County Sheriff’s Department is having a hard time staying in compliance. The Texas Jail Commission requires the Smith County Jail to have a specific ratio of inmates to detention officers. According to KETK, that has been trickier than usual. The jail had three open positions before several jailers were suspended or resigned after an investigation revealed false records. Now they have ten open positions. Officials with the department say they are making it work, but that means officers are now having to work extra hours. Officers are sometimes working six or seven days a week, said Sheriff’s Office spokeswoman Krista Caulkins.

“Every day…we check the inmates we have,” says Caulkins. “We compare that to how many detention officers we have on staff. Unfortunately, sometimes that does mean calling in an officer on their day off to cover.” The Sheriff’s Office expects to hire even more detention officers when the second phase of the new jail is finished.