For quite some time now, the Greene County Jail has been over capacity with inmates.

Greene County Chief Deputy Jack Williams says most of the inmates are probation violators that are held without a bond and there are a few who are from outside the county because they’ve been told that Greene County is lenient on the consequences for criminals.

Sheriff Steve Haupert says there are currently eight cells in the jail and they have used their two interrogation rooms as holding cells on a temporary basis. They put cots in the rooms, but they don’t have access to television or showers. The inmates are also allowed to have meals, which are provided by the Greene County Medical Center, which all costs the local taxpayers money, especially when they go over capacity. When Haupert first took over as Sheriff, he budgeted $25,000 for just meals for the inmates and now, he says, it costs over $35,000.

The other issue are female inmates. Anytime there is a female inmate, there has to be a female jailer. Haupert points out that they have both fulltime and parttime female jailers, but sometimes their schedules don’t mesh with when females inmates are brought in.

“We have taken female prisoners to Boone and they’ve been very gracious in helping us house the females and it’s probably about as cheap to have them in another county. It works for us.”

Haupert thinks that at some point, there needs to be a discussion about either updating the current facility or building a new one in the future.