Considering the number of man-hours that it took to schedule a two-hour tour of the Charles B. Webster Detention Center, I did not expect to be defending Richmond County Sheriff Richard Roundtree; yet here I am, doing just that.
When the tour invitation was issued, I was not prepared for what I was going to see. The tour was almost like going through a haunted house set in an insane asylum.
State law prohibits cameras inside of jails, but I really wish that I could have taken a camera to record what our tour group witnessed.
READ MORE: Sheriff invites mayor, commissioners and media to tour Webster Detention Center
While the walls were freshly painted and the floors shiny, there was an undercurrent of what I could only describe as dread.
Roundtree, our tour conductor, showed us the prison shanks that had been confiscated in the past two days, but assured us that we would be totally safe as long as we didn’t make any sudden moves.
The first thing you notice is the smell.
It was an odor that I have never experienced before. Jail officials said it was K-2, a synthetic form of marijuana that is regularly smuggled in. It didn’t smell like any marijuana I have ever smelled, and it was so pungent a contact-high seemed possible.
The first pod we went into was the medium security, and it looked like a somewhat controlled melee. The inmates were all yelling and placing their faces up against the wall.
The next pod was far more dimly lit, and all of the windows were dark tinted so that the inmates could not see out. I was told this is because the inmates have developed a code of hand signals, and it was the only way to keep gangs from communicating.
Along the steel causeway, the inmates appeared to be apparitions coming out of the mist, trying to look out and then fading back. It was like traveling through a haunted aquarium.
In the maximum security pod, the walls look like a disaster zone. All but one of the phones have been ripped out of the wall, the television had also been ripped off the walls and the cords just hung limp.
The window, which looked to be at least four inches thick, looked like it had bullet holes embedded into it. I was told one of the inmates beat the glass with one of the telephones.
The inmates had beaten in the heavy steel hinges on the cell doors, which disabled the magnetic locks. Guards are not allowed to carry firearms, and only a few are allowed to carry tasers. This policy is for good reason, but it also means some of those violent inmates do not go into their cell unless they really want to.
According to the jail command staff, no sooner is a lock fixed than another one is broken.
To be completely fair to Roundtree, he was handed an inadequate facility and has had to take a reactive approach.
The Charles B. Webster Detention Center was never designed to be anything other than a minimum or medium security jail. It was originally meant as an overflow facility housing misdemeanor inmates, and that was long before Roundtree’s term in office.
When the facility at 401 Walton Way was deemed uninhabitable, the Sheriff’s Office was forced to shoehorn the entire operation into a building that was not designed to work as a prison.
It went from an overflow facility into an attempted maximum security facility overnight.
Webster was not designed to have a kitchen pumping out 3,000 meals a day. The facility was designed for “indirect supervision,” which means that it performed optimally with a small staff monitoring computer screens and supervising the inmates at arms-length.
Since cameras can’t penetrate every nook and cranny, once the inevitable overcrowding began, the inmates found clever ways to hide their clandestine activities from guards. According to Roundtree, the inmates, most of whom are repeat offenders who bring penitentiary culture into the detention center, have learned how to operate from the inside as if they were still on the streets.
Once COVID hit and the court system ground to a halt, the detention center began to hit a crisis mode. Again, to Roundtree’s credit, he has asked for SPLOST funding to enlarge the jail for the past eight years. I double-checked.
Folks, a jail is not supposed to be a haunted house. This is really serious business.
You would not want to learn that a family member, who possibly committed a misdemeanor, had been locked up in this jail.
I agree with Commissioner Tony Lewis, who, during the conversation after the tour, said that instead of pointing fingers, it is time to acknowledge where we are at with the situation at the detention center.
Right now, in my opinion, simply leveling criticism at the sheriff for working with the toolbox he was given would be unfair to him and a bit of an insult to the fine men and women that comprise his command staff and the now skeleton staff of people who keep us safe on the streets.
Also, kudos to Mayor Garnett Johnson for stepping up and aiding Roundtree by offering him the mayor’s bully pulpit.
Scott Hudson is the Senior Investigative Reporter and Editorial Page Editor for The Augusta Press. Reach him at scott@theaugustapress.com
