By Ray King
Reports that more than 600 inmates at the Department of Corrections Cummins Unit have tested positive for the Corona virus has affected the operation of jails across the state, including the jails in Jefferson County.
Appearing on the Oldies 101.3 morning show Tuesday, Jefferson County Sheriff Lafayette Woods Jr., said that there have been no problems at either the adult detention center or juvenile detention center so far.
“That’s because of the staff,” Woods said. “They’ve done a traffic job and also because of the precautionary measures and the pro-active approach we took early on.”
Woods outlined some of those measures.
Asked about arrests made, Woods said there have been several for domestic violence.
“That was one of the misdemeanor charges that we said we were not going to turn away for obvious reasons,” he said. “I thought it was very important to show that we were very serious over these types of crimes. Although it would potentially be a misdemeanor, we didn’t want to have a situation where we made an arrest where the person went back and the situation escalated.
He also said he believed domestic incidents have increased recently.
The sheriff also talked about the recent storm and the difficulty of getting around initially because of trees and limbs across roadways.
“Out of the 75 counties in Arkansas, we’ve got 925 square miles of land mass,” he said. “There are a lot of rural roads in Jefferson County. Our biggest zone is Zone 1 which is everything across the river.”
He said he was not able to confirm it but believed that Governor Asa Hutchinson would issue an emergency disaster declaration for the county because of the amount of damage the county received. Woods also said that after the court house has been closed for the last few weeks, county officials are looking at the situation and there is a possibility that county buildings will open up to the public again next week.
