about

Detention Facility is a four story, 146,000 sq ft., 540 bed facility open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The Detention Facility houses persons arrested by area Law Enforcement Agencies, which include the Whitfield County Sheriff's Office, Dalton Police Department, Tunnel Hill Police Department, Cohutta Police Department, Varnell Police Department, Georgia State Patrol, G.B.I., F.B.I. and the Local Office of the I.N.S. The Detention Facility operates 12 hour shifts, work one week 80 hours and off one week. There is a total of 9 Sergeants in the Detention Facility; a Sergeant is assigned to supervise a particular section in the Detention Facility. The ninth Sergeant is a person who has to be very versatile because it is their duty to become the shift supervisor when the regular shift supervisors are on holiday, vacation, sick or away at training. There are a total of 81 staff members this includes, nurses, food service, detention staff, inmate work supervisors, central control staff, commissary staff and administrative staff. The Detention Facility maintains an outside public service work crew. The work crew keeps most of the local cemeteries mowed during the summer, and at other times they clean litter from the county Rd right a ways. Case law does not permit this crew to work on any properties, which are privately owned. The Correctional Center also maintains its own medical staff consisting of two nurses and a physician assistant who stays in contact with the physician on a daily basis, with visits from the physician on a weekly basis. Sick call is held daily and the staff will see and treat approximately 200 inmates per month.