Eddie Smith living large,
just not at-large for now
By Chip Drago
Mobile Bay Times
It's hard to live large when you're not at-large, Eddie Smith has discovered.
All things considered, Smith would rather be fishing. Or hunting. Or riding around in his Hooters' motorboat. Anywhere but a 5-by-7 foot cell in the Mobile County Metro Jail.
The county jail's most celebrated inmate, early into his 88-day sentence for violating the terms of his house arrest for harassing a young woman while she was working at a Radio Shack, is not a front-runner for Inmate of the Month, according to Mobile County Sheriff Sam Cochran.
Between the calls on Smith's behalf and Smith's own vocal dissatisfaction with the jail's amenities, Cochran suggested corrections officers themselves have joined Smith in looking forward to the day when the outdoorsman has fully paid his debt to society and they can see his ample backside departing in pursuit of life, liberty, lunkers and a trophy buck.
Smith, who in the past avoided jail after claiming a contagious flesh-eating disease and/or infectious gangrene and an E. coli virus in his lower right leg and foot, again asserted ill health and was sent to the jail's medical staff, said Cochran. The doctors, tracing his condition to "the area between his ears," determined Smith had no physical impairment to prevent him from serving his time in jail, according to the sheriff.
Speaking to a local civic club this week, Cochran addressed more serious concerns within the sheriff's department as well.
Since taking office almost a year ago, Cochran said he has striven to reduce the jail's population which at times has swollen to more than 1,600 prisoners. The facility is designed for about 1,130. Overcrowding is unpleasant and dangerous for everyone, from the inmates themselves to the stressed jailers to the harried administrators and to the public itself, said Cochran.
Underpaid and over-stressed, the jailers were tenuous employees, said Cochran, adding that he feared for a day when all of them would walk out and leave the jail and the sheriff's department stranded. By getting the corrections officers a pay raise and reducing the inmate population, Cochran said his worries about an unstaffed jail have eased.
The inmate population is now about 1,375 and dropped "beneath 1,300 for a time," said Cochran.
Cochran said technology was at the heart of his vision for the sheriff's department.
Using the Internet to streamline communications with bonding companies had an unexpected benefit, according to Cochran. Sheriff's officials learned that some inmates whose release was readily attainable nevertheless remained in jail because they were too embarrassed to call relatives or friends for assistance. However, the bonding company agents would recognize names and call friends or relatives of the inmates to explain the situation and offer the bonding company's services, Cochran said.
As long as the defendants are released under good bonds and pose no danger to the public, Cochran said their freedom is beneficial for everybody.
While worthwhile, reducing the jail population could go too far, said Cochran, pointing out that 300 inmates help to maintain the jail, do the laundry and assist in food service.
It costs $40.39 per inmate per day to house an inmate in the jail, said Cochran. If the jail population averages 1,300 rather than 1,500 over the course of a year, Mobile County taxpayers save nearly $3 million.
The jail itself operates on an annual budget of $22 million, an amount greater than any single municipality in Mobile County, except for Mobile.
Cochran was Mobile's police chief for over a decade before retiring and winning office as sheriff of Mobile County.
While some sheriff's deputies razzed Cochran and his team from the Mobile Police Department when they arrived and immediately equipped themselves with Blackberry's, calling the new crew "them blueberry boys," Cochran said the jokers themselves were soon asking for their own Blackberry's, as the sheriff expected and wanted. Communications are much tighter within the department now and personnel is more efficiently and rapidly deployed, according to Cochran.
Another area of emphasis, said Cochran, is narcotics enforcement. By attacking drugs, law enforcement also reduces violent crime and property crimes, said Cochran.
Cochran said the department patrols 11 beats covering 1,200 square miles.
