TDOC population increases, recidivism rate decreases
LISA HOBBS – News Editor
Warren County Jail currently has 23 inmates who qualify to be transferred to a state penal institution.
“We have 47 female, 171 male, 19 TDOC and four parole violations,” stated Sheriff Jackie Matheny Jr.
The information was provided during Monday night’s County Corrections Partnership with Chairman Randy England stating, “We’re up a little bit.”
“Yes, we could use for them to come get a few,” Matheny responded.
In July, there were 16 TDOC inmates, which are those that qualify to be transferred to a state facility and are awaiting just that. However, the state decides when and how many will be picked up. Until then, those individuals are housed locally.
Also discussed during the meeting was the latest program, a maintenance building where inmates would learn how to maintain vehicles. Leading the program will be an instructor from TCAT.
The maintenance building has two objectives: to teach inmates a trade with the hope of reducing recidivism and easing the financial burden related to maintenance of county vehicles.
“Hopefully, we can get this up and going before too long,” stated England. “It has taken us a little longer than what we wanted, but we will get there.”
Matheny asked the committee to consider the future of the program.
“That grant is coming… we’ll have to re-apply for it next year,” he stated. “Probably the most we will get is $400,000. We will have to decide as a county what we move forward with, program-wise, or if we will stay completely the same. That’s $400,000 over a three-year period. Of course, we’ve got grant officers overseeing that, so you have money coming out of there for jailers to oversee too. So, we will have to make a decision, even if we get the $400,000. I don’t know if we can do it all without the county’s help. That might be something for everybody to think about.”
England requested how much additional funding the jail may need, but an exact number is unknown at this time.
“Maybe in the next month or two, you can give us an idea of what will be needed. Are we going to need $200,000 more or $500,000 more?”
Offering recidivism reduction programs have been effective in slowing the revolving door at the jail. According to its records, recidivism was 31.3 percent in 2023. It dropped to 29.6 percent in 2024 and dipped again in 2025 to 27.6 percent.
“It’s not a great decrease, but it is decreasing overall,” stated Matheny. “I do see some positives, so we need to think about how we move forward with keeping the programs that we’ve got.”
England replied, “When we started offering programs, the goal was a 10 percent decrease in recidivism. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I think we’ve hit that. We need to try to find the money to keep this going.”