Editor’s Note: This is the first in a three-part series looking at the Baldwin County Jail facility, following up on a recent tour the Baldwin Times took at the jail. This week, we highlight an overview of the jail facility and perspective on how operations work there.
As of July 1, 558 people were inside of the Baldwin County Jail facility - 465 men and 93 women.
The supervision and care of inmates at the Baldwin County Jail is a full-time operation - 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year - and jail operations fall largely under the purview of Major Jimmy Milton, the county’s Assistant Chief Deputy, a veteran officer with more than 20 years experience in law enforcement.
“The vast majority of my career was outside of corrections, with the last 4.5 being over the jail here, so my eyes have been opened to what it takes to run an institution like this,” Milton said. “I have to rely heavily on my staff to give me guidance on what decisions we make that will be best for our operations.”
Milton said the staff budgeted for the jail amounts to almost 125 people, which is necessary to help make sure the jail runs well and inmates remind under control.
“We can place 651 people in a bed in this facility, but we usually average anywhere from 500 to 550 in a given month,” Milton said. “We haven’t maxed out in almost seven years, and we’ve been able to accomplish keeping the numbers manageable because of some resources we’ve got. The sheriff’s office partnered with the county in 2008 to develop a community corrections program, which allows us to take people that normally would have been sitting in jail and give some alternative system.”
Milton said a large majority of inmates fall into one category - those awaiting trial.
“The vast majority of people in here are we we call pre-trial,” Milton said. “They haven’t gone through adjudication yet, so they are literally sitting here waiting on that. Only a very small few of them are actually sentenced inmates.”
The jail also houses inmates for the City of Bay Minette, the federal government, U.S. Immigration and the U.S. Marshall Service. They also do emergency holds for the cities of Spanish Fort and Loxley.
Milton said they also handle individuals charged with felonies across the county.
“If you get charged with a felony charge in this county, you have to come to the county jail,” Milton said. “You can not be held in a municipality. A lot of times when people get arrested in Daphne, for example, depending on what they’re charged with, they’re probably going to end up coming to the county jail.”
Milton said the average jail sentence for inmates in Baldwin County is around 90 days, with the maximum amount that can be served at one year.
Like most jails, Milton said drug related issues are the most common offense.
“In general, you’ve got your possession, your distribution,” Milton said. “It varies, but it usually involves drugs or drug-related issues a majority of the time.”
Milton said at one point in time, the jail had busier seasons, especially with the increase in the tourist population during the summers, but those days are behind us.
“At one point, a vast majority of our numbers was based on season,” Milton said. “But with the population growth in Baldwin County, we’ve kind of seen that go to the wayside. It’s kind of a continuous thing. I think the years of us seeing the slow time have gone.”
Milton said he and other jail staff often reach out to jails of similar size to find ways to address problems or issues as they occur. He said jails like Montgomery County and Shelby County are of similar size to Baldwin.
“A lot of the stuff we deal with is nothing new to the industry,” Milton said. “A lot of times when we have something we consider new, we reach out to other agencies of our size and ask if they’ve done anything like that. Collectively, we’re all able to come together and try to solve problems, which is an excellent support system to have.”
Milton said Baldwin County also works a lot with Mobile Metro Jail and Escambia County in Florida.
“What we have in common, a lot of the people that are housed there, we also house here,” Milton said. “They end up back and forth, back and forth between all of us. A lot of people you see here, you’ll see six months later, sometimes even six hours later in one of the other jails.”
Milton said because of the amount of repeat offenders that travel between the area jails, communicating well is necessary.
“Information sharing is key, not only with the other county jails but with the municipal jails as well,” Milton said. “Anything that helps us gain more knowledge and insight about the issues we’re dealing with is something we will always welcome.”
Training is also a key part of what Milton believes makes the Baldwin County facility a leader in the state. Baldwin County Jail has developed training programs for its corrections officers and is able to offer that training to other officers around the region.
“We’re very blessed to have the resources and the support to have the ability to not only train our officers but try to open up our classes to help train other corrections officials throughout the region,” Milton said. “Not every facility is able to do things like this, and we always want to make sure our staff has the best knowledge and information possible when they’re out there doing their jobs. It makes it safer for them and better for the inmates that are under our care.”
Milton said he encourages people interested in how the jail runs to schedule a tour.
“We do grand jury tours a lot, we do local government tours a lot,” Milton said. “We like tours because the more we can educate people about what it takes to run a facility like this, the better it is for us. A lot of people need to understand what’s going on here.”
