Shelby County Sheriff's Office receives $350,000 grant to reduce jail population
The Shelby County Sheriff's Office has received a $350,000 grant to study ways to reduce the jail population at 201 Poplar.
Shelby County Sheriff's Office receives $350,000 grant to reduce jail population The Shelby County Sheriff's Office has received a $350,000 grant to study ways to reduce the jail population at 201 Poplar. Check out this story on commercialappeal.com: http://memne.ws/2yHfI96
Yolanda Jones, USA TODAY NETWORK – Tennessee Published 12:57 p.m. CT Oct. 4, 2017 | Updated 3:16 p.m. CT Oct. 4, 2017
Officials announced the MacArthur grant during press conference at 10 a.m. Wednesday at the Sheriff's Office headquarters at 201 Poplar where the county jail is also housed. Brad Vest/The Commercial Appeal
October 04, 2017 - From left, Shelby County Sheriff's Office Chief Deputy Floyd Bonner, Katy Mack, grants manager with the SCSO, and Chris Floyd, Criminal Justice Coordinator, speak about the $350,000 grant to the Shelby County Sheriff's Office from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. The grant is to continue efforts to reform the criminal justice system and safely reduce Shelby County's jail population.(Photo: Brad Vest/The Commercial Appeal)Buy Photo
The Shelby County Sheriff's Office won a $350,000 MacArthur Foundation grant to help reduce the jail population of low-level nonviolent offenders by 24 percent over the next two years, officials said Wednesday.
The Sheriff's Office was one 20 jurisdictions out of 200 that applied for the foundation's Safety and Justice Challenge, a project that funds agencies that are looking at ways to reduce over-incarceration.
"The MacArthur Foundation grant is a national effort to reduce jail population without impacting public safety," said Shelby County Chief Deputy Floyd Bonner. "The Sheriff's Office has put a collaborative team of criminal justice stakeholders together in 2015 and their work has been ongoing since then."
Shelby County announced Wednesday during a news conference that it was one of 8 jurisdictions to win additional funding to continue to address the growing jail population.
Expanding on previous grants
In 2015 and 2016, Shelby County won two grants totaling $300,000 from the foundation to start the process of looking at ways to reduce the jail population. With the new grant funding of $350,000, the process is being expanded, said Chris Floyd, the criminal justice coordinator for Shelby County.
"What we are talking about is targeting people for release who are here for misdemeanors and low-level felonies," Floyd said. "We want our facility to be there for those that have serious charges."
The grant money will be used to implement five strategies aimed at reducing the jail population, Floyd said. Those strategies include reducing the case processing time to expanding pretrial services for those in jail.
The county said the length of time those in jail are staying has increased 43 percent since 2014.
The jail has a capacity for 3,181 at the men's facility at 201 Poplar. As of Wednesday there were 2,442 in jail, and of that number, some men have been in jail for as long as five years for various reasons including delays with the grand jury process to their cases being continued by the courts.
"We want to make sure everybody who can get out is getting out and also it lets us look at our jail population to see who is here the longest," Floyd said. "Even if a person ends up being convicted in the end that person shouldn't stay here for a long time. We want to make sure the criminal justice system is functioning well in Shelby County and this grant is helping us do that."
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