Sheriff’s Dept. facing drug-related issues in inmates
Holmes County Sheriff’s Office members Sheriff Timothy Zimmerly, left, Lt. Inez Strouse and chief deputy Richard Haun met with the Holmes County commissioners recently to discuss growing concerns over their inmates’ physical health and mental-health challenges and the weight the department is carrying in dealing with these issues.
Holmes County Sheriff Tim Zimmerly, Holmes County chief deputy Richard Haun and Lt. Inez Strouse recently sat down with the Holmes County commissioners and Holmes County prosecutor Sean Warner to talk about the difficulties the staff are facing while manning the jail.
“The reason we wanted to get together was to give you all an overview of the operation and what we are struggling with in running the jail operation,” Zimmerly said. “What Inez is facing in running the jail with COVID and with some of the mental-health issues that we have to face and complying with regulations is a struggle.”
Strouse said they have been receiving several inquiries as to why the department hasn’t reinstituted the work release program following COVID when everything shut down.
She said at this point there are state standards they must abide by. She said the jail would have to have a work release block in the jail for both male and female prisoners, which in a jail this size is a struggle.
“If we have one person in a work release block, we are taking up seven other beds that nobody is in because we can’t have anyone else in a work release block,” Strouse said. “We can’t put the work release inmates into the general population. They are not allowed to intermingle in any way, shape or form.”
Zimmerly said he is a huge proponent of the work release program, but this issue has been going on long before COVID arrived, although COVID did bring it to the forefront. He said Judge Andrew Hyde has several people he is waiting to sentence but prefers not to do so at this point because he doesn’t want them to lose their jobs, which they wouldn’t if the work release program returned.
“We want to keep people working,” Strouse said.
However, the crux of the conversation centered around the mental-health issues of inmates and the strain being put on the staff.
Strouse said COVID hit their operation hard and added a great deal of stress to the staff, having to deal with not only the COVID issue, but also the growing mental-health issues of inmates.
“Our medical and mental-health costs among inmates are extravagant,” Strouse said. “They are over the top this year. It got worse through COVID, but we currently have 21 inmates, and the costs are greater than ever.”
The onset of mental and physical issues in inmates has risen from the use of fentanyl, a harmful and deadly drug that continues to sweep across the nation. Strouse said the issue is these inmates should be in medical facilities.
Not only that, but also the staff members are in physical danger every time an inmate with fentanyl dust on them arrives because simply touching the substance can cause illness and even death.
“It takes a very minute amount of dust to kill, and there have been officers killed when coming into contact with it,” Haun said.
“We realize we aren’t alone with this struggle. It’s everywhere,” Strouse said. “It has added a great amount of stress within the staff as we struggle to deal with these issues.”
Another topic discussed was the challenge of addressing active warrants. With the mental-health issues on the rise, that creates more dangerous scenarios the officers must deal with in pursuing active warrant arrests.
Strouse said performing wellness checks on inmates is incredibly time intensive. She said at one point they had to perform 10 wellness checks, and with only three holding cells, that creates a difficult scenario.
“Any time an inmate comes in and drugs are involved, we have to withdrawal them, and we have to isolate in three holding cells,” Strouse said. “I think with so many people being home during COVID shut-down, people weren’t working, and they turned to whatever they wanted to, and the drug use has gotten worse.”
She said inmates continue to show more aggravated and bizarre behavior, something she said could be due to the increased number of inmates who are in jail who are using drugs.
Because of that, the staff must find ways to deal with rising mental-health issues in inmates.
“Our holding cells are full,” Strouse said. “We have more violent offenders. We have experienced more use of forces in our facilities this year than we have had in the last five years, but that hasn’t stopped us from arresting people. But right now our staff feel like we are working more on a mental-health ward and not a jail.”
With nowhere in the county to house offenders suffering from mental-health issues, it leaves the sheriff’s department with precious few alternatives than to move ahead as is.
“We just sent a violent offender with mental-health issues to Frazeysburg because it was the closest place to handle him,” Warner said. “We tried Operation 6:12 in Coshocton, and he walked off the site. It’s a difficult situation that we simply don’t have the resources to deal with.”
Warner said as drug crime continues to rise, it sets a precedent where judges are becoming more lenient on lesser crimes because it is overwhelming jails and prisons. He said seeing so many drug-related criminals come into the courtroom also helps create scenarios where judges are giving lesser penalties, at times not even sending drug users and drug sellers to do any time.
“Part of the problem is sheer volume of residents and crimes,” Warner said. “Judges tend to get desensitized to drug-related offenses. I’ve seen it play out in our courts, and people are actually shocked to get sent to prison, even when they are trafficking drugs.”
He said Holmes County continues to be more forceful in sending users and traffickers to prison to send one simple message.
“We don’t want that going on in our community,” Warner said. “That’s not to say we are unaffected. We are still experiencing methamphetamine use and trafficking. It’s still our number-one charge in Holmes County and accounts for 70-80% of our docket. We see it, but we try to sentence people who are brought in.”
Strouse said the department hears rumors about people being upset with their effort to crack down on active warrants, and she said the department is out doing the job to the best of its ability.
Warner said whether it is probation or serving jail time, the department seems to be operating in the best possible manner.
“It’s been our goal to have the inmates leave the jail better than they were when they came in,” Zimmerly said.