New Oconee jail worth all our tax dollars

Sheriff Scott Berry kindly toured his new facility with the law abiding members of the Oconee County Democratic Committee Sunday evening. He answered every question directly and took us places where not many public people get to go.

The communication center was extremely interesting as to how they keep DVR copies of all the many video cameras for 60-90 days. The most hilarious aspect of the tour was hearing the Star Trek sound effects on the copious computer terminals through out the very impressive and sterile facility.

No pathogens or staph infections here, thank you very much. No basketballs in the recreational area either (so no attempted outages of the surveillance equipment. They have room for around 180 prisoners but only had around 70 at the time we went through.

They have a contract with Jackson County and the city of Winder to house their prisoners, as well as an understanding with Clarke County to house some of their overflow. We were not treated to any shakedowns or MSNBC documentary type horrors but we did see a few prisoners milling about their cells and elsewhere.

Again thanks to Sheriff Berry for showing us around his large facility, where he says some of his deputies log 12 miles of walking checking on all the prisoners. No illegal aliens are in their midst but it will take another year of training before this jail becomes the last place people will see before forced deportation.