A&E’s “60 Days In” featured a cast of seven individuals who went undercover at the Clark County Jail, in Indiana, to expose Corruption. The cameras followed the seven cast members as they navigated their way through 60 days of hell. By the end, two of the seven cast members would drop out while the remaining five fought their way through it.
From contraband to assaults, A&E’s “60 Days In” showed a jail that was seriously lacking in supervision, security, and control — a facility that allowed inmates to have free reign to do as they pleased.
“I can’t believe what I’m seeing!” stated Gary York, a retired Prison Inspector from the Florida Department of Corrections. “My initial impression of the Clark County Jail, after seeing it on “60 Days In”, was that this facility needs training in areas of leadership, contraband control, internal investigations and Inmate Manipulation.”
Russell Hamilton, a retired Sergeant from the California Department of Corrections, believes that the institution has failed on many levels to provide adequate supervision of the inmates within their facility. He states, “The staffing levels seemed low and the presence of staff in the pods was sporadic or nonexistent.”
Jamey Noel — the elected Sheriff of Clark County (Ind.) — makes note that he is understaffed and has tried multiple times to address the issue. “The county council, that approves the jail budget, literally zeros out the jail budget and I have to file a lawsuit for basic funding of the jail. I have asked for additional staff and it has not been approved yet,” Noel said.
As of now, Sheriff Jamey Noel had to reassign staff to best meet the operational needs of the facility.
On a national level, understaffing in jails and prisons are on the rise and has contributed to major security concerns (staff fatigue, assaults, escapes, etc.).
During his time as an Inspector for the Florida Department of Corrections, Gary York has seen his fair share of issues related to understaffing. He believes that an understaffed facility can easily affect the performance of correctional officers.
“With very little rest (due to mandatory overtime), they become mentally and physically drained which can lead to major safety and security concerns,” York said.
When Sheriff Jamey Noel was asked about his feelings towards how the facility was represented, he answered, “The facility and undercover participant were filmed for 60 Days / 24 hours a day and you see 12 episodes (about 12 hours) of the highlights of the time period.”
With season two getting ready to air in September, Sheriff Jamey Noel wants the public to know that there was only a two week rest between the filming of season one (1a) and season two (1b).
“Most of what we learned, and were able to implement for improvement, happened at the conclusion of season two (1b),” York said.
Sheriff Jamey Noel is currently making improvements in the hopes to deter criminal activity in his jail. He is very mindful of what was shown on TV and has made addressing these issues his first priority. So far, Sheriff Noel has applied remedial training where needed and added programs to hopefully cut down the recidivism rate.
