By Tilly Dillehay
Macon County Times
LAFAYETTE, Tenn. — Macon County Sheriff Mark Gammons has a new proposal to bring before the Macon Commissioners this month. He wants to sell his inmates electronic cigarettes. Gammons believes that he can raise $50,000 a year in commissary revenue simply by providing this new commissary item.
According to Tennessee law, prisoners in a correctional facility cannot use tobacco. Gammons says that many of the people booked into the jail are addicted to tobacco already. This produces a constant contraband problem, with inmates trying to smuggle tobacco in.
Just as importantly, he says, this solution could address the problem of underpaid correctional officers.
“Over the past several years, I’ve been trying to get our correction officers from $10 per hour up to a better pay,” said Gammons. “We have a high turnover rate, probably ten times greater than the deputy and dispatcher turnover rate, and that’s due to pay. We’re a training ground, because once we train them, they find out they can make more money elsewhere, and they’re going where they can make more.”
At a recent Tennessee Sheriff Association conference, Gammons came across a company that makes electronic cigarettes especially designed to be used in correctional facilities.
The company is called Crossbar, and was started by a KY jailer who was also trying to find a solution for addicted inmates while increasing revenue. The problem was that electronic cigarettes generally are made with a hard metal casing—which inmates soon started using as a weapon. So the jailer started a company that makes the same electronic cigarettes using soft plastic.
These cigarettes contain 500 draws, or puffs, apiece. That is the equivalent of 2.5 packs of cigarettes. Gammons plans to sell them for $13.50 each, which is roughly the same price that cigarettes would go for on the street.
The units emit vapor, not smoke. They contain nicotine, but no tar, tobacco, or smoke residue. They come in either classic or menthol flavors.
Gammons plans to have his Jail Administrator and Jail Lieutenant oversee the program. Correctional Officers will number each cigarette that is sold, and the number will be recorded as it is sold to a specific inmate. The inmates will be required to return the reusable casings so they can be sold again. Inmates will take a puff of the cigarette when they buy it, to ensure that it is working, and then liability for the purchased cigarette will be theirs.
“I estimate we can sell approximately 150 cigarettes a week,” said Gammons. “So this is a way to give [the correctional officers] a raise without taking money from the taxpayers. This is money that my correctional officers are generating—they’re doing the work—this way we can ensure that we pay them more, reduce our turnover rate, and stop being a training ground for other counties in the state.
“They work hard. I’ve realized they were underpaid before I was Sheriff, and since I’ve been Sherriff I’ve been trying to find a way to get them paid more.”
Gammons plans to propose this idea to the County Mayor and Commissioners in their August 12 meeting. He will ask that a separate budget line item will be set up for this category, so they can keep track of exactly how much revenue is being generated, and he can use that money to give his correctional officers a dollar an hour raise. He also believes he will have enough to pay for all or part of a new department vehicle every year.
Sounds like a win-win-win to us—but let us know what you think in this week’s online poll question (posted for voting August 7).