"Sheets' investigation has also made headlines because of the arrest of a key source.
Sheets spoke with a landscaper named Matt Qualls who mowed Entrekin's lawn in 2015 and noticed the name of the account on his checks — the "Sheriff Todd Entrekin Food Provision Account." He shared pictures with Sheets."
"Sheets' initial story was published on Feb. 18. On Feb. 22, Qualls was arrested and charged with drug trafficking after an anonymous call complained of the smell of marijuana from an apartment.
Qualls, who had never been arrested before, faces six charges and is being held on a $55,000 bond, Sheets reports. He is detained in a jail that Entrekin oversees."
Can we do a cost benefit analysis on Alabama and see if we are in any from profiting from preventing them from seceding?
Its very close to port of New Orleans which is the only place in South the British attacked in 1812 war and its capture by Union forces in early half of civil war was pivotal for the outcome of that war. For strategic reasons its absolutely necessary for US to have complete control of Mississippi river system including the mouth of the river.
It would be a strategic blunder to let Alabama secede, also as much as HN loves to hate the south, Alabama has over 33% African American population, that has to be kept in mind.
The world is not static, before jerking off and spewing words like secession a deep breath and a mindful analysis helps.
> It would be a strategic blunder to let Alabama secede, also as much as HN loves to hate the south, Alabama has over 33% African American population, that has to be kept in mind.
Did anyone bring up race here? I don't see how a comment about race is relevant towards discussion of corrupt government.
Hi sremani, I was not seriously suggesting that the nation come together to contemplate whether Alabama should seceed or not, but that will not stop me dreaming.
Remember: county jail holds people waiting to go to trial. Many of these people have not been convicted. Often these inmates are coerced by their appointed attorney (who is swamped) to waive their right for a speedy trial. Torturing prisoners in the US is bad, but torturing the untried is truly evil.
Ethical nit-pick: In degrees of 'evilness' it shouldn't matter whether or not the person being tortured is convicted or not — unless you subscribe to the rather unenlightened notion that condemned criminals by default deserve worse than what the judge handed down as a sentence in a fair trial.
Is torturing someone who has committed a hundred murders and someone who has committed no murders ethically equal? I can see both sides of the argument making good points.
If you consider torture to be ethically bad (which I suspect most would), then it would be strange to make an exception to it and say it's bad except someone did something to deserve it, no? From the position of the person doing the torture, I would find it hard to say that someone else's crime permits me to be less ethical myself, as if committing a hundred murders needs to be balanced out by adding to the crime.
In the UK prisoners on remand (not sure if you use that term but it means waiting for a court date) get rights that convicted prisoners don't, such as being able to wear their own clothes, to vote, to continue to run a business and support to help you keep your job, to access private healthcare and so on.
> ...inmates are coerced by their appointed attorney (who is swamped) to waive their right for a speedy trial.
Oftentimes in the US it is less about a busy defense attourney and more about the prosecution offering a plea deal to skip trial. I can't say with any certainty why this is done but I believe it's due to overcrowding in courts and jails.
Many attourneys will suggest the defendant accept the plea deal because it's a sure thing. It's a lighter sentence than if the defendant went to court and when a case goes to court -- especially a jury trial -- it is impossible to say how it will turn out and it could end up far worse for the defendant when compared to the plea deal.
It's also about the DA padding her own stats. Charge the defendant with every felony that even closely fits the alleged crime, then allow them to plea down to a misdemeanor. DA gets a conviction, court docket is smaller, and the alleged criminal "gets off easy".
There is no mention of starvation in the title of the article nor in the text. I'm not sure why it's in the title of the submission. There is a link to a related article "2009: Ala. Sheriff Jailed For Starving Inmates". I assume it's the same article referenced in this article:
"In 2009, then-Sheriff Greg Bartlett of Morgan County was briefly tossed in jail after acknowledging that he had personally profited, to the tune of $212,000, from a surplus in the jail-food account. Prisoners testified about receiving meager meals."
Still, I don't see the justification for the use of the word "starvation" in that context, either.
"Starving" probably not. Using expired food, creating gruels, making the inmates sick, forcing inmates to steal food with violence -- is a bit more accurate title. Here is an example Arizona sheriff laughing as he makes inmates rotten food [1]. I would suspect many inmates do begin the starvation process and become violently ill. (NOTE: many of these inmates have not been convicted of a crime, this is county jail).
> "A couple people I knew came through the jail, and they say they got meat maybe once a month, and every other day, it was just beans and vegetables," Qualls told Sheets. "I put two and two together and realized that that money could have gone toward some meat or something."
The provided budget for food is obviously going to be roughly set at the minimum necessary to provide barely adequate nutrition, because that's how legislatures operate. So if most of that money is being stolen by the sheriff, starvation is a perfectly reasonable term to use.
Many jails/prisons are spending no more than 50 cents or so per meal, and providing only two meals per day.
Thanks, we've updated the headline from “Sheriff Legally Profits $750,000 from Starving Inmates” to that of the article. The guidelines ask submitters to please not editorialize like this.
It's not about sticking up for sheriffs. It's about telling the truth without sensationalizing it. What the sheriff did was bad enough, there's no need to embellish.
You know I feel similarly as you, but with all of the research I have been seeing lately about how propaganda and emotional manipulation are far more effective than facts and reason, perhaps it is the case that to achieve positive change you do need to embellish, or else the forces pushing for negative change, who have no problem embellishing, will win?
Surely you must think some ends justify some means. For example I highly doubt you've cut all white lies from your life. What makes the use of embellishment here different?
I don't think anyone should be shamed for trying to make a conversation more honest, even if they seem to be serving the bad guy. Criticizing the word usage doesn't tip the scale toward the sheriff much at all.
Prisons in Texas, right now, move to 2 meals a day on weekends. As far as I know, the money saved isn't pocketed by anyone personally, but it is happening.
Inmates that have some support system supplement with commissary purchases.
So it's a transfer of what should be government spending to spending by inmate families. The benefit seems to flow to the companies that run the commissary programs.
Soon, all of it will be handled by the private sector who will charge the inmate for staying in prison so then we have inmates coming out of prison owing so much money they'll never be able to repay it.
I know one person who went to prison here in San Diego and with extra money he can buy a better food like a breakfast burrito in the morning rather than eating the standard breakfast.
That's how, in my mind, the commissary should work. At least in Texas, that's not what actually happens. They will, for example, withhold soap, toothpaste, and toilet paper. Ask yourself why these items are even offered in the commissary. Why would you need "extra"?
The law says he must "keep and retain" any funds not used to feed inmates. Well he didn't keep nor retain it, he spent it to buy a house. How is this considered "following the letter of the law" ?
I think you're trying to be overly clever in your definition of the words. The sheriff gets to keep the budget surplus. It's his personal money now. That's what keep and retain means in this context: that it's his money, no ifs, ands or buts. Yes, he is following the letter of the law, like it or not. I think it's crummy and the incentives to shortchange inmates and tax payers seems obvious to me. Alabamers, if they get sick of it, can legislate change if they want... it's on them.
Well all government wages are taxpayer money... but to answer your question. The original intention of the law may have been one thing, but enterprising people are always looking for loopholes. Life hacking is the original hacking after all. And some folks are more ambitious on the scale they're willing to go. At this point the status quo is so traditional, you get to do this if you become sheriff. If managed "right", it's quite a nice perk and people aren't willingly going to give up perks when their number comes up.
I mean in the story this sheriff had to take out $150,000 loan because when the last sheriff died his estate got to keep the budget. The new sheriff probably didn't mind all that much, because he knew long term he could pay that loan off and make hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of dollars if he could hold on to the office long term.
From what I see in Alabama's laws (https://law.justia.com/codes/alabama/2009/Title14/Chapter6/C...), it's more that there is a severe lack of "who watches the watchmen" set up in the laws, leading to what I see as the corruption described in the article.
There is a section that says that yes, the sheriff has the duty to feed the prisoners. There is a section that dictates the amount per capita. There is a brief section on supervision (14-6-41 -- the Board of Corrections and county commission in theory should supervise the feeding).
There is no section that I see so far that says the sheriff is supposed to pocket the change. There is, however, a section in 14-6-41 dictating that the sheriff doesn't have to create a daily record of food, though. So there's no audit trail.
Basically, it's a system that is very loose, the state gives the sheriff money, and that's it. Thus if the Board of Corrections and county commission "look the other way" on this sort of setup, the sheriff could easily pocket "cost savings". Alabama is not exactly known for its lack of corruption in government, so this story doesn't surprise me.
(Added pet peeve note: I really dislike media articles that reference "the law" without even providing a fleeting reference to what "the law" is. It's possible I missed a statute that more toes to the NPR story, but NPR sure isn't helping me look up what they are talking about with that article.)
The criminal justice system in this country is broken. I’ve long wondered what I can do to improve it but haven’t figured it out yet.
The most common advice I’ve received is to go pass the bar or become a cop. I know “good” people who did this...I no longer consider them good people. The system got to them.
> "A couple people I knew came through the jail, and they say they got meat maybe once a month, and every other day, it was just beans and vegetables," Qualls told Sheets. "I put two and two together and realized that that money could have gone toward some meat or something."
That's hardly "starving".
This article title is sensational and should be changed. It serves no one to misrepresent the truth, especially in a world dominated by hyperbole and sensationalism.
Edit: Those downvoting me, what about my statement do you disagree with?
Since the end of Reconstruction, prisons have been used throughout the deep south to provide slave labor and enforce white supremacy. The answer to your question is that voters in Alabama have no interest in weakening the tools used to dominate and control non-white populations.
Are there any historical lessons to be learned from others that have done this in the past? Is that Sheriff putting the lives of other corrections officers and jail staff at risk?
> "Sheriffs across the state take excess money as personal income — and, in the event of a shortfall, are personally liable for covering the gap."
Does that ever happen? What could cause it to happen? Could the state not just say, "we're reducing your budget by 750k this year, make up the shortfall Mr Sheriff." and he'll have to cough up?
When Entrekin's predecessor died while still in office, all the money in the food provision account went to his estate — as state law dictated, a county official told NPR. Entrekin had to borrow $150,000 to keep the inmates fed. He was paying down that debt for years, The Gadsden Times reported.
In 2009, while he was still in debt from paying for inmates' food, Entrekin told the Times that he personally thought the law needed to be changed. But he noted that it might cost more money for taxpayers if the county commission had to manage jail kitchens through an open bid process.
David Akins, the chief administrative officer of the Etowah County Commission, agrees with that assessment. He says the commission is not eager to take on that duty, as some other local governments have done.
"The sheriff can feed inmates cheaper than the county can," he said.
Giving the sheriff the opportunity to personally profit from providing meals may well create lots of incentive for efficiency, but where's the check that makes sure the food is adequate?.
> Eschew flamebait. Don't introduce flamewar topics unless you have something genuinely new to say. Avoid unrelated controversies and generic tangents.
We’re a huge country, of course you’re going to find lots of issues. The US is also really good at publicizing the bad stuff we do. But I guess American hate is all the rage these days.
It certainly doesn't seem to have any particular HN merit beyond pointing and shrieking at somebody else's problems, no, and it's producing comments that I would consider to either be shading on racism or crossing the line. I've flagged it; feel free to join me.
People need to understand the same or similar occur in many localities across the US; I would suspect other countries might have related issues. it is also not confined to law enforcement but many in local and state government have similar setups
throw in pension abuse and you would be amazed at the dollars lost to all of this, dollars easily better used for other purposes
If you insist on calling everyone corrupt, you remove all incentives not to be corrupt: after all, why bother if you red-faced constituents will scream invectives at you anyway?
By and large, a tiny fraction of civil servants steal from official accounts. This case is a strange consequence of the rather peculiar legal standing of the sheriff’s office, in one particularly backward US state.
My friend's dad was a cop who "abused" the pension system. He retired at 45 with a full pension and immediately began working in the private sector, essentially giving him dual income.
Prior to retiring from the police, he was paid $15k to $35k annually over the course of 20 years (I adjusted for inflation, so those are 2018 dollars).
Sometimes "pension abuse" is "getting a fair salary after I've left the job" (not always of course).
Qualls, who had never been arrested before, faces six charges and is being held on a $55,000 bond, Sheets reports. He is detained in a jail that Entrekin oversees."
Can we do a cost benefit analysis on Alabama and see if we are in any from profiting from preventing them from seceding?