Floyd County jail struggles with crowding, garbage, broken lights, sinks and toilets
James Creech recently spent five weeks inside the Floyd County Detention Center in Prestonsburg, in trash-strewn cells with broken lights, toilets, sinks and showers; filthy jail uniforms; and far more of his fellow inmates than there was available space to hold them.
“Sometimes you got a mat to lie down on and sometimes you didn’t,” Creech, 33, said in an interview this week. “We didn’t even have room to lay our mats down all the way. We were lying on top of each other on the ground.”
Beyond being badly overcrowded, Floyd County’s jail has been the location of death, suspected drug smuggling and sodomy and repeated findings of sanitary and safety problems by the Kentucky Department of Corrections.
The 112-bed jail, which typically houses more than 150 inmates, is paid to hold state prisoners for whom there is no room in the state prisons. Jail officials say there are currently two dozen state prisoners on site.
Inspections by the Department of Corrections over the past two years documented “excessive amounts of trash ... in all living areas,” broken bathroom fixtures, busted windows and exposed wires, among other problems. Some floor mats intended for inmates to sleep on were simply uncovered cotton lining without the plastic-wrap exterior, the inspector wrote.
“Reported by prisoners throughout the facility that laundry had not been processed in several weeks. Staff advised that the laundry machines were inoperable at this time,” state inspector Michelle Stringer Dykes wrote in her report Sept. 28. The Herald-Leader obtained Dykes’ report through the Open Records Act.
“Reported by prisoners throughout the facility that cleaning supplies are not being provided daily, and most advised they had not received cleaning supplies in several weeks,” Dykes added. “Living areas reflect this as such.”
Dykes also noted repeated “inconsistencies” over the last two years in how cell checks were recorded by jail employees in their surveillance logs. This makes it unclear whether the staff is performing mandatory in-person safety surveillance on inmates, she wrote.
The Floyd County jail can be a dangerous place.
Pending lawsuits accuse the jail of negligence for inmate Adam Potter’s beating death in 2018 at the hands of another prisoner, who subsequently was charged with murder, and inmate Heather Slone’s death in 2019 from a suspected drug overdose.
Also, criminal cases are proceeding against former Deputy Jailer Dustin Johnson for allegedly smuggling illegal drugs and other contraband into the jail in exchange for cash and against two inmates, Michael Hall and David Hood, who allegedly held down and sodomized a third inmate in August.
Creech lived in the jail from Sept. 10 to Oct. 17 because he was unable to afford a $1,000 bond to secure his pre-trial release on a drug possession charge.
He spent some of his days with four other men in Holding Cell 39, a 62-square-foot room. Each inmate got a smaller spot on the concrete floor than the average coffin.
“We had to holler all day long if we wanted a drink of water,” he said. “I feel like if you treated a dog the way we got treated, you’d go to jail for it.”
Inmates are stashed anywhere open space can be found, Creech said, including the visitation booth areas where lawyers are supposed to meet privately with clients to discuss their legal cases — an observation also made by local attorneys in interviews and by the Department of Corrections inspector.
“It smelled horrible,” Creech said. “And it’s always cold. They keep it freezing in there. I think they do that so we’ll just stay in bed all day, just lie down and not move.”
Terry Dean Jacobs, a Hindman lawyer, has brought some of the current lawsuits against the jail.
“I will tell you this,” Jacobs said this week. “I have practiced law for over 30 years. I would venture to say I have visited more jails around this state than any other attorney I know. And I believe that Floyd County needs more changes made to its jail than any other county in the state.”
Clogged toilets, thin staffing
Floyd County Judge-Executive Robert Williams said he’s all too aware of the jail’s deficiencies.
“It is noted, what is going on over there. What you’re telling me is nothing new,” Williams said. “It’s just a situation that’s got to be addressed.”
However, while the Floyd County Fiscal Court approves the jail’s $2.5 million annual budget, independently elected jailer Stuart “Bear” Halbert is responsible for its management, Williams said.
“The statement I get from the jailer is — I call him and I say ‘Hey, what’s going on over there?’ And he says, ‘I don’t have to report to you, I’m the jailer. I’m the elected official, I’m the elected person that takes care of the day-to-day operations,’” Williams said. “So I have no authority to step in and do anything.”
Halbert, the jailer, said in an interview this week that he’s at the mercy of several factors outside his control.
He said the jail is nearly 30 years old, and because of the cash-bond and sentencing practices of local courts, it’s badly overpopulated, putting a strain on the building and its fixtures. (The jail — despite its crowding — agrees to hold state prisoners for a fee. This year, it’s budgeted to collect $578,000 in such fees from the state.)
Unhappy inmates cause plenty of damage by flushing large items down the toilet and deliberately breaking sinks and other equipment, Halbert said. Repairs can take days, particularly lately, with so many parts on back-order, he said.
“I’d hate to know how much we’ve spent on plumbing this year,” he said. “When they get aggravated, of course, that’s when they start stopping ‘em up. Ninety-nine percent of that is the inmates going to ‘em and stopping ‘em up. It’s not like it’s anything mechanical. They flush their blanket, they flush their clothing, you know, whatever.”
Staffing is thin, Halbert said. There might be four corrections officers on duty in the entire building, with one in the control room and three “on the floor” to supervise more than 150 inmates, he said. If the officers have to respond to a fight between inmates, making the next round of scheduled cell checks can be tricky, he acknowledged.
The jail is having the same difficulty hiring and retaining qualified workers that many employers are right now, he added.
“In a perfect world, we try the best we can,” Halbert said.
“We do a good job, and we’ve gotten a lot better the last couple of years on our (surveillance) logs. We try to do everything the right way, the way it’s supposed to be done. But, you know, occasionally those logs are not right. That’s part of DOC (the state Department of Corrections) checking that and making sure we do a good job,” the jailer said.
‘They are still human beings’
Lawyers in the region describe the jail as a nightmarish place where poor people who can’t afford to pay bonds for pre-trial release plead guilty to criminal charges rather than live in squalor for many months while awaiting trial. Someone who has money for a $1,000 or $2,500 bond gets to go home and fight the charges, the lawyers said.
“It’s coercion, is what it is,” said Prestonsburg attorney Ned Pillersdorf. “You’re forcing a lot of people to plead guilty to a crime they might have a legitimate defense for, but they can’t afford cash bail and they want to get out of there sooner rather than later.”
“My clients in the Floyd County jail continually complain about sleeping in shifts because it’s so crowded in there that they don’t have enough room on the ground to all lie down at once,” Pillersdorf said.
Added Jacobs, the Hindman lawyer, “It’s not acceptable. These inmates, regardless of what they’ve been accused of or what they’ve been convicted of, they are still human beings. There is no reason in present-day society that we should allow this sort of facility to exist.”
However, the state Department of Corrections — despite the problems its inspections keep identifying — has continued to issue certificates of occupancy allowing the Floyd County jail to remain open. Moreover, it keeps paying the jail to house state prisoners, for whom there is not enough room in state prisons.
“DOC has not removed state inmates from the jail due to issues identified in the inspections,” Department of Corrections spokeswoman Katherine Williams confirmed this week in a prepared statement.
After state inspections find problems, the jail replies with a list of corrections it intends to make, Williams said.
“The written corrective action plans submitted by Floyd County indicated a good-faith effort to address the non-compliant issues,” Williams said. “DOC will continue visiting the facility on a regular basis in an effort to ensure the corrective actions are being implemented and to address any ongoing or new concerns with the jailer and jail staff.”
