Inside new county jail.. Photo by Samantha Watters
The new Coffee County jail is set to open later this year but will the current workhouse remain open?
The workhouse is the portion of the old jail where low-risk inmates sentenced to the work detail program are housed. Sheriff Steve Graves says the new jail is not being built to include a work detail, and that any work detail program must be conducted in a completely separate facility from the jail itself.
Commissioner Rush Bricken and others agreed that since the cities of Tullahoma and Manchester, the Coffee County Rural Solid Waste Department and several non-profits use the free inmate labor to reduce labor costs, it appeared that it should be kept in operation. Graves said he agreed that the program is worth keeping.
At a recent meeting commissioners voted to continue examining the costs and benefits of the work house program.
The new jail is set to be in full operation in December.
