Special Report: Christmas behind bars

For more than 600 people in our area, Christmas Day is being spent in the Hall County Jail this year. 97.5 Glory FM wanted to know how different in Christmas Day for the inmates. If, indeed, it is.

QUESTION AND ANSWER WITH 1^st LT. JEFF ASHLEY OF THE HALL COUNTY SHERIFF’S OFFICE (HCSO) JAIL BUREAU:

*The number of people who will spend Christmas Day in the jail?

We will have approximately 620 inmates with us during the Christmas holidays. Last year, we received 19 offenders on Christmas Day for a smattering of offenses ranging from DUI to aggravated assault, but the number does not really differentiate from any other calendar day.

*How does Christmas Day/week stack up with the rest of the year when it comes to visitations? Is it the busiest day of the year?

There are 50 visits scheduled for this entire week so far (as of Monday morning) with 29 of the visits scheduled for Christmas Day. So, the majority of this week’s visits will occur on the holiday itself.

*And no in-person visits any day of the year, right?

All visits are conducted via video visitation terminals (excluding attorney visits). Inmates are allowed one 30-minute onsite video visit per week between the hours of 8 a.m. and 10:30 p.m. based on availability. All visits must be scheduled 24 hours in advance. Visitors may log into a video visitation session two minutes ahead of the scheduled start time. The video feed will automatically turn off 30 minutes after the scheduled start time. Visitors can schedule a visit online. The family pays a per-minute fee to visit with their loved one. The 30-minute rule does not apply to attorneys and clergy members. Clergy members are allowed to visit throughout the week between the hours of 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. Attorneys may visit at any time.

*Are visitors allowed to bring gifts to an inmate?

We do not allow families to bring gifts to the inmates; however, families may purchase care packages from our inmate commissary and have them sent to the inmates. The offenders will not receive the packages on Christmas Day but will receive them on days that commissary items are typically distributed. Sheriff Couch has historically approved for the jail to purchase Holiday Kits from our inmate commissary provider. Hall County Jail staff members will distribute these kits on the night of Christmas Eve.

*And are the meals any different?

We do prepare a different meal for inmates on holidays, and we call those spirit meals. This year’s spirit meal for Christmas will consist of:

Turkey Ham (we are a pork free facility for inmates)

Sweet Potato Casserole

Macaroni & Cheese

Gravy

Corn

Pineapple Upside-Down Cake

Baked Garlic Roll

Beverage

About the Author

Ken Stanford is Online News Editor for GLORY 97.5, a position he has held since August 2022.

Ken was born in Moultrie, Georgia, and says he knew from the time he was 5 or 6 he wanted to be a “radio announcer.” That dream was realized when he was hired by Moultrie radio station WMTM in 1960 at the age of 15 as a weekend disc jockey. A 1963 graduate of Moultrie (now Colquitt County) High School, he has spent his whole career in Georgia working for stations in Atlanta, Marietta, and Gainesville – most recently as News Director for 40 years at WDUN in Gainesville. He is a veteran of the U.S. Air Force Reserves.

Ken retired in 2011 but came out of retirement last year to help GLORY, on a part-time basis, beef-up its online news presence.

He is the recipient of many Associated Press awards and is a former judge of state and national Associated Press broadcast news contests. In 2005, he was presented with the Georgia Associated Press Broadcasters Association’s President’s Award for Excellence in Journalism and in 2019 was inducted into the Georgia Radio Hall of Fame.

He lives in Gainesville with his wife of 52 years, the former Sandra McKnight of Clio, Alabama, and they have one child, a daughter, Lisa, who lives in Cumming with her family.