TBA Law Blog


Posted by: Kate Prince on Aug 22, 2022

Johnson City commissioners last week approved a recommendation to close the city’s half-century old jail, which houses a declining number of incarcerated females, News Channel 11 reports. The city began housing women serving jail sentences in 2002 through a contract with the Tennessee Department of Corrections (TDOC), which paid $40.75 per day for each incarcerated woman. However, as the number of those incarcerated has declined – the jail averaged a census of just 48 as of June – the cost to house them has remained the same. “It does not serve a purpose for us to be in this space, especially when local taxpayers are no longer in a net gain position,” said Johnson City Mayor Joe Wise. In the recently ended fiscal year, expenses were roughly $36,000 higher than revenues. The jail is now set to close within weeks.