BY DAN HILDEBRAN
General manager
KEYSTONE HEIGHTS—The assistant chief of patrol south for the Clay County Sheriff’s office told a Lake Region civics group that expanding the county jail by 20% and taking over school security from the school district’s police department are the top projects for his agency this year.
Jeremy Clark told the Keystone Heights Rotary Club that last year, the school board authorized Superintendent David Broskie to phase out the district’s internal police force and start negotiations with Sheriff Michele Cook to take over school security.
“It’s a minimum of 51 new staff that we have to hire or transfer or otherwise incorporate in order to cover it,” Clark said of the additional responsibility. “And so, it’s a big lift for us, and we’re putting a lot of resources into it. We’re standing up a whole new department within the agency that is going to manage the juvenile function and the school system.”
Clark added that the new department will have its own director and administrative staff and will get support from an assistant chief.
“We’re in the process right now of getting all those resources lined up and transferring people that want to move from the current school board police over to Clay County,” he said, “going through the process of transferring them over, going through the process of hiring direct hires, (and reviewing) our own internal applicants that are expressing interest in it— a lot of moving parts.”
The assistant chief said the agency will be prepared to handle security for the district’s 42 schools when classes begin for the 2024-2025 school year on August 5.
Clark said the agency normally increases its staff by 10 people a year, so adding five times that number is challenging.
Jail renovation
Clark said the jail renovation project should be completed by the end of 2024 and will add 100 beds to the 27-year-old facility with a current capacity of 500.
“Over the last decade, we’ve averaged a daily population of usually around 400 to 450 inmates,” Clark said, “so we’re usually at 80% to 90% capacity.”
The assistant chief added that the jail became obsolete 15 years ago, and the agency has been propping up the facility with what he called band-aids.
Clark said a new jail is not something county commissioners were prepared to commit to, so converting the third-floor administration area into additional inmate space was the best solution the sheriff could negotiate with county leaders.
“It’s a big project,” he said, “but it’s a lot less expensive than a new jail. It’s not a solution, but it buys us time— buys the county and the community time to manage the growth.”
Other initiatives
Clark said another project underway now is acquiring a rapid DNA machine that will allow the office to analyze DNA from arrestees rather than sending samples to a Florida Department of Law Enforcement lab, which is the current practice.
“It’s a new technology with a very expensive machine that we can put in our jail that allows us to process the samples in real-time on-site and then upload the data directly to the database,” he said. “We get immediate results, instant results where we can get that DNA checked against evidence that’s been collected or can be checked against warrants or flags in the system.”
Clark said that now, because of the time lag in processing the cheek swabs, arrestees could be released that should be kept in custody.
“So, if we had a suspect who was wanted for murder in another state and got arrested on a minor crime here and nobody knows about it,” the chief said, “he may be out of jail on the minor crime before the old way of doing DNA would come back.”
Clark added that the Clay County Sheriff’s Office is one of four agencies in Florida that received a grant for the new technology.
“So, it’s not costing the county a dime, and we just have to put it in, train on it, come up with some policies, and start using it,” he said.
Trust and transparency
Clark said the office is also working to improve communication between the agency and community, especially about jail programs that reduce recidivism and increase the probability that inmates will be successful after release.
“We have a lot of programs within the jail aimed at our sentenced inmates, to keep them from getting back into the system, whether that is education, vocational skills, or getting them off of drugs, alcohol or other addictions,” he said. “We spend money on it, we put people in place to work on it, and we get quite a bit of success out of it, but largely, no one knows about it.”
Clark said his agency enjoys a trusting and open relationship with the community, and Sheriff Cook wants to keep it that way.
He added that other law enforcement agencies across the country do not have a good relationship with their constituents.
“It runs the gamut from distrust to downright despisement,” he said. “I mean, they just can’t stand each other and do not work together to make the community better for everybody. That’s not Clay County. It has never been, and we don’t ever want it to be that. So, we are very, very guarded about our relationship with our community, and it has to remain one of our priorities.”
Clark said the key to retaining trust is following the basics of respecting others.
“It means being transparent as much as we can, making sure that every member of the organization at every level, from the lowest deputy to the most seasoned leader, listens to the people in the community, takes their concerns seriously, and follows up, returns phone calls,” he said. “Whatever it is, if it’s important to someone, then it needs to be important to us.”
