Almost six months after all the camera crews and undercover inmates left the Etowah County Detention Center, Sheriff Jonathon Horton said the “60 Days In” experience put him about 10 years ahead in making improvements at the jail.
The final two episodes — reunion shows involving the participants, Horton and Chief of Corrections Keith Peek — aired during the last two weeks, and the sheriff seems glad to have it all over and done with.
The show producers contacted Horton prior to taking office, and the cameras came on board when his administration did. It was about the end of March or early April when the first team of participants went into the jail, posing as inmates to gather information that the sheriff and jail staff could use to make conditions better.
A&E billed it as the wildest season ever, and promoted it highlighting the number of participants who couldn’t make it to the end of the 60 days.
Horton got the chance to see the episodes before they aired, and had some moments of “Do I really want to do this,” when he thought about putting all the faults found in the jail on national TV.
But looking back, the sheriff said, he would do it again. He said, “The things we learned, especially from Team One,” were things they never could have learned from the outside the facility, outside the cells, looking in.
“Was there some television drama there?” Horton said. “Absolutely.”
But what the cameras captured made the needs for change apparent, in training and equipment for officers, in the way units were structured and in some procedures used when inmates leave and return to the jail.
Horton said he would have liked to alter the timeline of the show a bit. The producers’ idea to send in a second team of participants came up just as Team One — what was left of it — was leaving the jail.
He would have liked to have more time to act on the information the first team gleaned, and to solidify some changes, before that second team went in. By that time, the already-in-the-works repairs on cell door locks and windows were done, but the detention center had not received the X-ray machine it uses now to search inmates coming into the jail. Team Two left the jail on Nov. 8; the scanner went into use after Christmas.
Even without the X-ray machine, participant Tony, a Fulton County corrections officer who participated in both seasons, said he saw a 110% change from his late spring stint in jail to the 30 days he spent there last fall.
A great deal of the criticism on the show was leveled at corrections officers — though only a few frequent fixtures on the show — and their lack of control in the jail.
Horton said changes were made to better train and equip the officers for the job, and to make it a better job, period.
The County Commission approved three step raises for corrections officers, he said, and a one-step increase on hiring schedules.
COs are now equipped with tasers as well as pepper spray, and other equipment that show participants recommended, on their equipment belts.
They get five weeks of training, increased from the previous three weeks, that includes more self-defense and use of non-lethal force. Perhaps more importantly, Horton said, officers don’t train for five weeks before they get an idea of what they getting into.
“We have them train with someone now,” Horton said, to give them a chance to see if this is really the job for them.
All the changes have helped cut down the turnover in the jail. In the recent past, Horton said, there would be 15 or 20 new hires in the jail at each commission meeting. Now there may be two or three.
“We had people who would come in and quit within a week,” Horton said, after weeks of training.
Along with the commission purchasing a $150,000 X-ray machine to scan people coming into the jail, he said those measures have combined to make the COs more confident.
Horton said they know the inmates have been scanned well for contraband, they know cell doors will lock and that they have the equipment to deal with problems in the jail.
“There are a million little things we learned,” he said, that have made a big difference.
Having the show filming during the year in office was an added challenge. “You have a million things to take care of,” he said, “and you have this big secret film project.”
When Nov. 8 rolled around and the crew was leaving, Horton said there was a feeling of “it’s been nice, but good riddance.”
Before the COVID-19 pandemic limited access and public gatherings, Horton said an open house was planned to show the public how different the jail is now from what they saw on the show.
He said it’s cleaner, with no graffiti on the walls. Cells are not cluttered; it’s more like the military.
Horton said there’s been a change in the atmosphere, and that has made a great difference for the staff and the inmates. He hopes that open house can happen, when the pandemic ends.
Stay tuned.
