Warrick Jail Adding Security Features in Wake of Escape

About $20,000 in improvements to the Warrick County Jail should make the facility much more secure, according to Sheriff Marvin Heilman. The work was done in response to the February escape by Larry Miller and Josh Ridings. Miller was captured shortly after the jail break. Ridings was caught two days later. Sheriff Heilman called the escape an embarrassment, but also a learning experience. Warrick County Commissioners gave Heilman funds to add an additional ring of razor wire around the outdoor exercise yard where Miller and Ridings escaped from. Lights for the yard were also rewired to work on a dusk to dawn activation switch. Previously, inmates could access the light switch for the yard, and on the night of the escape, they turned them out. A lock to the yard was also improved. Heilman says over the 19 years since the jail was constructed, corrosion made the door to the exercise yard fail to latch on occasion. None of these defects was pointed out in previous annual inspections as being a problem with the facility. All of them worked in concert February 24th when the men broke out, said Heilman. He said a staff of just 3 jailers, which is standard for 2nd shift, also made the escape possible. Those three jailers were tasked with monitoring the 93 inmates in the jail that night. "Id like to have more jailers, Id like to have more deputies," said Heilman, but financial constraints of the county make adding staff right now an impossibility, he said. Instead, he said his entire staff has been reviewing all of the policies and procedures to ensure inmates arent given access to places they shouldnt, or given time to escape. "You have to know the rules, be attentive all the time so these type of opportunities wont arise," Heilman said. Jailer inattention on the night of the break out gave Ridings and Miller time to make their escape by moving a snapped section of razor wire and using a sheet to climb out of the exercise yard. Heilman said that had any jailer or staff member noticed what was going on, it would have been very easy to thwart the break out. "Theres no information that they were not performing their job," Heilman said of his jailers. To add extra sets of eyes, a video monitor showing various locations in the jail has been added to the Warrick County dispatch center, which sits in the jail complex. Dispatchers now will be able to see what is happening in the jail as well. Heilman says hed like to add updated video monitoring equipment throughout the facility, but cost is a prohibitive factor.