MACON, Ga. — The oldest cells in the Bibb County Law Enforcement Center are getting new locks after commissioners allocated $2 million from the sheriff's office commissary fund to go toward the project.
The commissary fund comes from the inmates themselves — money they spend on goods or the phone gets put in an account. The money from that account, the commissary fund, can go toward improvements.
"Not taxpayer money. This is money that is generated through the jail," Davis said.
The county signed off on the funding at the commission meeting on Tuesday, on the six-month anniversary of Marc Anderson, Joey Fournier, Chavis Stokes and Johnifer Barnwell escaping for the Law Enforcement Center.
In the weeks following the Oct. 16 jail escape prompting a month-long manhunt, Davis partially blamed malfunctioning locks. He spoke frequently about damage at the jail, including damage from inmates.
"It sort of wobbles out the places where the bars go into the floor. It also damages the mechanisms in the locks," Davis said.
Sheriff David Davis says the locks use magnets as their locking mechanism.
"When it's closed, it's closed. It is several thousand pounds of pressure," Sheriff David Davis said, describing the new lock system. "Where those magnets are connected, they're solid, right there. So, it's really fixed it to where the inmates can't go in and jiggle the doors."
He says the technology has been around for years, but the magnets weren't strong enough to hold up in jail until recently. Davis says the Bibb County jail is one of the first in the state to use this type of lock, and other counties are taking notice.
"Representatives from other jails throughout the state come in and check it out and see what we've got. We're kind of the guinea pig," Davis said.
This is not the first time cell locks have come up before Macon-Bibb commissioners. After the October escape, commissioners approved another $1 million from the commissary fund to fix locks.
In April 2021, after Deputy Christopher Knight was stabbed to death in the jail, they gave the sheriff's office around $3 million to make sure cells locked properly. Davis says those fixes involved installing metal plates around the locking mechanisms to prevent inmates from tampering with them. Still, he said, there were several components to the lock that could fail, especially after 40 years.
Davis says another part of the $2 million will go toward general repairs for the jail. He says in next year's county budget, he's asking for money to improve the air conditioning system and plumbing.