Tuesday, January 20, 2009

NO!

Remember a couple weeks ago when Morgan County Sheriff Greg Bartlett was jailed for not providing adequate nutrition to inmates in his care? Remember that he also pocketed - legally - $212,000 over three years on top of his $65,000 a year salary. He was able to do that by starving his inmates.

There was public outrage. We were on the front page of the NYT, CNN and who knows how many other papers around the world, looking like the cave-dwelling-knuckle-dragging-barbarians that we always look like when we make national news.

So folks got busy looking at ways to fix the problem. Here is what the Sheriff's Association came up with.

Give us the money we were stealing by starving the inmates in the form of a pay raise and we won't starve the inmates anymore. No shit!

They wanted to make what a District Judge makes which is around $110,000 a year I believe. That made me laugh so hard. The two bit yuk-yuk boss hawgs in this state are not required to have a degree of any kind. Only a GED is required. Yet, they want the same salary as the judge who has spent many years in college to earn that salary.

HELL NO! We are in a recession....nay damn near a depression and there is no money for pay raises. Sheriff's know what the job pays before they take it. Are they saying that they only took the job because of the incentive to starve prisoners and pocket the money that should have been used for food?

I swear the nuts are running the asylum in this state.


3 comments:

Don said...

There are probably a bunch of sheriffs in Alabama (AND other states) who don’t have degrees of any kind or maybe even a GED, but Elmore County Sheriff Bill Franklin earned a degree at Auburn…..I believe it was in criminology or some such subject. I guess many sheriffs aren’t qualified for their position and may not earn whatever they’re paid. I don’t know what his salary is but the people of Elmore County must think Franklin earns it because they keep voting him back into office and I haven’t heard of him being criticized by anyone around here.

He might be a good person to call and get his opinion about this.

sixstring said...

I guess we can debate about how much sheriffs should be paid, but whatever they are paid should not be from an inmate food fund. Any time you have a profit motive for criminal justice officials, it's ripe for abuse. Does Sheriff Franklin make any income from the inmate food fund?

Don said...

sixstring, I really don’t know the answer to your question about Sheriff Franklin. You can call him and ask him. His phone number is listed as (334) 567-5546 on the Elmore County website @ http://www.elmoreco.org/Default.asp?ID=143&pg=County+Directory