A report released on Tuesday found that inmates in Marshall County were able to obtain drugs, weapons, alcohol, pornography, and other items through a volunteer work program at the solid waste plant in Lewisburg.
The investigative report done by the Tennessee Comptroller of the Treasury investigated the Marshall County Solid Waste Department and the Marshall County Sheriff's Department, which is in charge of transport of the inmates, as well as work release programs in the county.
The report found that while the inmates were sorting through recycling, they'd find prohibited items and store them away, hiding them throughout the recycling facility, and even attempting to bring numerous items back to the jail with them.
"When you have inmates that have access to weapons, when you have inmates that have drugs with them, there is certainly a risk that things could go wrong, and that was a problem in this situation," John Dunn, public information officer for the Tennessee Comptroller of the Treasury, said.
County officials said they were not aware of the severity of the problem until the comptroller's office brought it to their attention.
"We knew from time to time they would grab some stuff and we would find some stuff, but we didn't realize how many places they had things and how much stuff they were getting," Morgan Thomas, director at Marshall County Solid Waste, said.
The report found that the issues did not stop there.
The Solid Waste Department also hired one of the inmates to work for them full-time.
"This was an incarcerated felon who was hired as a county employee and received full benefits," Dunn explained of the situation, adding that the inmate had been paid more than $12,000 in taxpayer money.
Thomas said that someone would have been paid to do the work, regardless of whether they were an inmate or not, but he acknowledges that in hindsight, the inmate should not have been hired for the county job.
The report also found that inmate did private work for Thomas on his farm.
While that inmate wasn't being paid by the county while doing the work on the farm, the work still violated the work release program rules.
"We're obviously embarrassed about the mistakes we made and that we made the county look bad, we made our facility look bad," Thomas explained, adding that the facility has since been working to fix the problems that were raised. "Some of the first things we've done is we added some cameras to our security system."
As the results of the investigation unfolded, the Marshall County Sheriff suspended the work release program in the county, but the volunteer work program is still intact.
"We're sorry that we put a black eye on the county, and we have worked already to correct a lot of it and we're going to make sure we correct the problems," Thomas said.
The full report has been made available online on the comptroller's website.
