Assessment of jail leads to addition of officers
The move was prompted by inmate assaults on corrections officers.
LISBON -- More staff will be added to the privately operated Columbiana County jail after an assessment of the lockup's operation.
Two part-time corrections officers are expected to start work early in September, Peter Argeropulos, chief operating officer for CiviGenics Inc., said this morning.
The officers are being added and other security changes are being made in response to a review of the jail's operations by CiviGenics, the Milford, Mass.-based company.
CiviGenics, which is contracted by the county to run the lockup, reassessed its operation after Sheriff Dave Smith expressed concern about a rash of assaults that have occurred in the jail.
Smith, who was unavailable this morning, has said that in the last six months there have been three episodes in which inmates assaulted corrections officers and five situations in which inmates assaulted one another.
In no instance were any of the people involved seriously hurt.
CiviGenics also is making other changes aimed at improving security, including altering the inmate mealtime procedure and eliminating a blind spot in a medium-security unit, Argeropulos said.
CiviGenics has been running the jail since January 1998. The company charges the county about $48 per prisoner per day, which amounts to about $2.1 million annually.