Shelby County Commission talks on sheriff's office heat up

As commissioners discussed changes for Shelby County Sheriff's Office, talks got heated, with one commissioner telling another to "shut up."

[MRBROWNPAUL]

MEMPHIS, Tenn. (WMC) - Run-down. Short-staffed. And more dangerous than the most notorious jail in the country. The Shelby County Jail at 201 Poplar in Downtown Memphis surpassed Rikers Island last year in the percentage of inmates who died in custody.

The county jail is a pre-trial facility. The 2, 300 inmates housed there have not had their day in court yet and are innocent until proven guilty. But with the Shelby County Court system moving like molasses on a cold winter’s day, many inmates wait months, even years for their cases to get resolved. The wait can be terrifying, and for some, deadly.

When 16 inmates died in a single year at New York’s Rikers Island in 2021, prison reform advocates and politicians called it a “humanitarian crisis.” 14 inmates died at the Shelby County Jail in 2022, and the jail’s population is less than half of Rikers’ 5, 900 inmates. Yet there’s been no public outcry for change, accountability, or justice for Shelby County Jail.

“We need our citizens to get riled up about this, ” Shelby County Commissioner Britney Thornton told Action News 5, “because the band-aid fixes aren’t working.”

Commissioner Thornton said she was shocked and appalled when she toured the Shelby County Jail last year. She saw leaky pipes, mold and rust, and inmates forced to stay locked up 23 hours a day because of staffing shortages.