Sheriff Gets Help Housing Displaced Dallas Co. Inmates
From the West Alabama Newsroom–
The Dallas County Jail is unusable after being severely damaged by the January 12th tornado. So now what happens to someone arrested for committing a crime?
About 130 inmates at the Dallas County Jail — had to be moved — after the jail received major damage from the tornado — that ripped through the Selma area January 12th.
“The main thing when it first hit was the safety and security of those inmates. But now you gotta have, we’re still making arrests. So, where do those inmates go?” said Sheriff Mike Granthum.
Granthum says sheriff’s offices near and far have stepped up to help his department house inmates.
“We have inmates all the way from Cullman to Geneva County,” he said.
“We have local jails, your Lowndes County, your Perry County, your Wilcox, they have stepped up. And if we make an arrest now, we can actually use their jail, their facility as a booking procedure.”
Granthum says an agreement signed with the state will bring about 50 inmates a little closer to home — to be housed at the Perry County PREP Center.
“You know there’s no manual to do this. So, we were flying by the seat of our pants. I mean, what do we do? But I mean, I called other sheriffs. Got some input like from Tuscaloosa. You know when they had the storms from up there. We’ve been getting input from them. How do we do this? What’s the best way to do that? And everybody’s just been so helpful.”
Granthum says several sheriff’s departments have also donated cars to his department — to replace the ones destroyed in the tornado.
He says the sheriff’s office will begin transporting inmates to the PREP Center — next week.
