- (female announcer) Production funding for Behind the Headlines is made possible in part by the WKNO Production Fund, the WKNO Endowment Fund, and by viewers like you, thank you.

- Democratic candidate for county sheriff, Anthony Buckner, tonight, on Behind the Headlines.

[intense orchestral music] I'm Eric Barnes with The Daily Memphian, thanks for joining us.

I'm joined tonight by Anthony Buckner, he is the Democratic candidate for county sheriff, also current chief deputy, thanks for being here.

- Happy to be here.

- Along with Bill Dries, reporter at The Daily Memphian.

Before we get started with talking to candidate Buckner here, just some logistics.

We are in the middle of doing some of the key office holders running for election at the county seats.

That election is August 6th with early voting starting in mid-July.

Last week, we had John DeBerry, the Republican candidate county mayor.

We'll have Mickell Lowery, the Democratic candidate for county mayor in, I believe, about two weeks.

We've also reached out to Brad Less, the Republican candidate for county sheriff, and hope to get him on soon.

And on August 6th is also the primaries for the state and federal.

So especially, obviously, a lot of focus on the now three districts that cover parts of Memphis and parts of Shelby County.

Once the primary is set, we'll try to get those candidates on as best we can before the general election, which is November 3rd.

But in the lead up, all the redistricting, all the new districts, all that, Bill and others at The Daily Memphian will be covering that extensively as we move towards that election.

But we are here with Anthony Buckner.

You won the primary for the Democratic candidacy for sheriff.

- Right.

You have been at the Sheriff's Office for, what did we say, 24 years?

- Twenty-four years.

- Started as patrolman.

Now, essentially, the number two person as chief deputy.

- Right.

- We'll talk about all kinds of things.

We'll try to get to your background, how you get started on all this.

But one of the things we, you know, that the spotlight that has been on the Sheriff's Office a lot in the last probably what, four to eight to 10 years is the jail.

- Right.

- What is working, right, at the jail and what is not working at the jail as you see it?

- Yeah, so thank you so much for the question.

Again, thank you so much for having me on the show.

So two years ago, I became the chief deputy of the Sheriff's Office.

And for the first several weeks, I just tried to really understand all of the issues and what would I try to tackle first.

And obviously, the jail commanded a lot of my attention.

And one of the things that stood out was just how the repairs or the maintenance of the building had really, really kind of slipped behind.

And so I began to work with our finance team at the Sheriff's Office along with the County Commission to help them understand some of the needs that were really impacting the jail from a maintenance perspective at that time.

And so we were able collectively to work together to get about $16 million, secured to make much needed repairs inside of the facility.

The crowd or the overcrowding of the jail was a challenge, as well as the recruiting efforts to hire more correctional officers.

All of those things were competing at the same time, which was taken to jail in a very bad direction.

And so I began to work with our human resource division to change some of our hiring strategies.

One of the things that I recognize in this business, and you talked about it moments ago, I've been at the Sheriff's Office 24 years, it'll be 25 in October.

And candidates for law enforcement deputies and candidates for correction officers are not the same.

When I was a young boy, I spent... In fact, I'll tell you this.

It was a punishment for my mom to make me stay inside of the house.

So I spent a majority of my time outside playing, and riding bicycles, and racing my friends, and things of that nature.

I said all that to say this.

When I came to the Sheriff's Office, I was in pretty good physical condition to go through the process to be hired.

But candidates today are not as physically active if they didn't play a sport.

So when they show up at the Sheriff's Office, they're not quite as in shape.

And so my perspective at the time was working with the candidates to get them built up so that they could pass our physical agility test so they could become sheriff's deputies.

So I changed some of the processes that was required to be hired to be a deputy, and I saw our numbers explode from a recruiting perspective.

And then the overcrowding piece.

Had a chance to sit in meetings with the governor and explain to the governor how challenging it was for us to have state inmates inside of the facility.

And we average anywhere between 150 to 200 state inmates.

These are people who have been convicted of crimes and they're waiting to be transferred to state prison.

- Which is not... Just to interrupt, not what the jail was intended for.

The jail was meant... So someone's been arrested, they're waiting for trial- - Right.

- They're maybe gonna get out on bail.

However that's gonna go.

- Right.

- Not for people who've been sentenced to one, to 10, to 20 years.

- Exactly.

- That's not what it was built for and what it's designed for.

- It's not and, you know, you may have heard me say this publicly before, but it costs us about $100 per day to house a resident or an inmate inside of the facility.

And so the state only reimburses us about $41 to $42 per day, so we take a loss as taxpayers on that.

But apart from the money, just space, you know, we're at a critical state when it comes to the population inside the facility.

So to have 150 or 200 inmates moved out of the facility, that provides more space for people who are being arrested.

But then for those who are already in the facility, it provides us an opportunity to try to separate what we call predator from prey.

- One more from me and then we'll go to Bill here.

There've been focus on jail deaths, we've written about that, other people have covered that.

- Right.

- Is that a concern of yours?

Other people have said, well, you have a population of what, 1,000 people.

You've got people who maybe aren't healthy, they've had drug issues or, I mean, so is it just the natural course of things to be expected sadly or is it something... Does it reflect poorly on the management of the jail?

- So let me say this.

We average somewhere around 2,900 to 3,000 inmates across two facilities.

And certainly, with that number of people, you're gonna have residents with stage four cancer, comorbidities, heart disease, diabetes, like all these issues that are in our community already, and these individuals oftentimes find themselves in jail.

And not to even mention, substance abuse issues.

So we do have a very, very sick population.

I say that to say that that doesn't mean that we sit on our hands.

I think we still have the responsibility of making sure that we provide aggressive medical care for people who are inside of the facility.

And so one of the things that... My plan to do as a sheriff is to work with the county mayor to get the medical contract, our portion, meaning the jail portion, brought back under the purview of the sheriff.

One thing that I've discovered- - And where is it now?

Is it with the county?

- Right now, it's with the county.

- Gotcha.

- And that contract services 201 Poplar, Jail East, as well as the correctional centers.

But one thing that I have found that has been a little bit challenging as a chief deputy, is when you need to make some adjustments, if it's a change in the contract, then you have to go through the process of- - Right.

- Getting with the county and making that change and, you know, but, again, I walk in that facility often, I'm meeting with the staff quite often, and so I would like to have that contract under my purview.

So when I see changes that need to be made, we can make 'em contractually in a faster pace.

- Let me bring Bill in.

- What impact has the Memphis Safe Task Force had on the jail?

- So immediately, I go to the population.

And I'll tell you this, Bill.

Before the task force started, I think this was probably around September of 2025, the US Marshals for the United States of America came to Memphis and began to have some pre-meeting, pre-task force meetings, and the sheriff and I took him through the jail to show him that we were already at a critical state when it came to population, and how challenging it was going to be at the number of arrests that they were predicting to make.

It would be very challenging for us to have space and to find space.

And so as we predicted, once the task force started, our population just absolutely exploded.

There were moments, and I think you may have covered it, Bill, there were moments when in our intake alone, we had more than 300 new arrestees sitting in an area that was really only designed for about 50 or 60 people.

It literally strained the entire justice system, not just the jail, but from the General Sessions Court Clerk's Office from the judiciary, all of us felt the immediate impact of double the amount of arrests that were coming in.

I think our normal daily arrest count was around 60, but when the task force came, we were seeing days of 100 to 120 arrests, and that was just absolutely unsustainable.

And so we went back to the state officials saying, "Hey, you gotta help us."

You know, I personally had conversations with the COO for the state, and they began an aggressive movement to start moving those state inmates out of our facility.

But then also, those who have been arrested for violation of parole, which is an administrative issue if they don't have new charges.

And so it's been a constant daily battle since the task force started to try to get that population down.

Because we know in our community, we've heard of a lot of gang-related activity, and it's our goal to make sure that those who come inside to the facility are separated.

People who are charged with the same crime, keep them separated.

Those who are, again, I used the term earlier, predator and prey, and when I say that, I mean people who are charged with very violent crimes versus someone who are charged with nonviolent crimes, keeping those individuals separated.

But when you have the population, and at one point in time when the task force started, we had 3,100 and some odd number inside of 201 Poplar.

It is extremely challenging to keep everyone safe, to include the staff, you know, during those conditions.

- I'm gonna go back, Bill.

The jail was built for how many?

What is the proper number- - So- - Or correct number?

- So when we talk about this, you hear 2 different numbers, 2,400 and 2,800, and let me explain that.

The jail has 2,400 certified state beds, but we have 2,800 beds.

So obviously, simple math.

Four hundred of the beds that we have are not certified by the state for a number of reasons.

So 2,800 is the maximum capacity for bed space.

- And when you talk about intake, these are people who are being booked, they haven't gotten to the jail yet.

And when that's backed up, at one point, I think you had folks who were there for longer than a day.

- Yes, and behind the scenes, there were a lot of issues that were, you know, really impacting that.

So I think, and you may remember this, but the county had issued a moratorium where we could not hire for non-public safety positions, I think, until January, sometime in January.

So for positions that would help get people out of jail, whether it's within our office or some of the support officers, like the General Sessions Court Clerk's Office, they could not hire new positions.

And then some of the offices had challenges with overtime, so they couldn't pay overtime.

So all of this, you know, again, I used the word I said earlier, that all these systems were strained immediately.

That strain really revealed the vulnerabilities of the system.

And so I think now, we are operating a little bit better.

We, at the Sheriff's Office, have used a considerable amount of overtime, helping with the release process, because for the amount of hours that you have heard about people sitting in an intake, they're literally sitting.

You know, they're not being able to lay down or stretch their legs out because that area was not designed for that, it was designed for a temporary or as a temporary housing space.

Funny thing is, the other day I was in the office and I walked past a bulletin board that had an image from The Commercial Appeal from 1978 when they were building the new jail.

And at that time, the way the jail is being utilized today is not the way I think the architect and the people who were making decisions had envisioned.

So again, that area was not designed for someone to sit there for 16, 17, 18 hours.

- Is the problem with the jail just the structure or if you win this election, when you become sheriff, do you have to work on the policies?

- So I think policies, training, and the building, all three have to be addressed.

We are still short about 350 odd correction officers.

And when you're short that many people, it impacts the management of the facility because you can't do the things that the policy would say that you probably should be doing or need to be doing because you just don't have the staff to do those things.

But I know a couple of weeks ago, we graduated a class of nearly 40 new correction officers.

We have not had that number in many, many years.

And so I do believe that we are trending in the right direction in terms of getting more people in the building, because when we get those numbers down, we can get that number from 350 to 250 to 150, then we can invest more into training.

Because the way it's set up right now, when you take 10 or 15 or 20 correction officers away to do more intense training, well, you're creating a deficit inside the facility of 15 or 20 people.

And again, you can't cover all of that with overtime.

So again, when we fix that number, then the management, the training, the policies all improve.

And I know at some point, we'll probably get into my thoughts on building a new jail, so I'll go ahead and tease it right now, with this.

'Cause I've heard some arguments or some comments in the community saying that, "Hey, you know, if you have bad management "and you take it to a new building, you're still gonna have bad management."

And that is absolutely true.

One thing that I will say with a new facility that's built by today's standards and with today's thoughts of how we need to treat or should treat inmates or residents of the facility, it would require fewer correctional officers.

So that 350 number that I mentioned, it may not be 350, it could be 175.

So it improves there, as well as the usage, the utilization of new technology that helps manage detained population.

There's a lot of technology out there that a lot of correctional centers use to help with staffing, you know, in terms of management of residents.

But with our current facility, the way it's built, a lot of the technology we cannot utilize because if it communicates via Wi-Fi, there's a lot of steel, a lot of concrete that makes it challenging to use new technology.

- Well, and the other thing is, is if this ball started rolling toward a new jail, it might not be built in the next four years.

- I'm pretty sure it would not be built- - Yeah.

- In the next four years, but here's what I hope as the next sheriff within the four years is to sit at the table to make sure that whenever it is built, that it's built in a way that addresses today's issues.

One of the things that I'll tell you, Bill, and you guys may already know this, that if the building that we have today were to try to open as if it were a brand new building based upon how it's designed today, the state wouldn't certify it.

The entire facility is outdated.

Ninety percent of the lighting that comes inside of that facility is artificial lighting.

So when you think about or consider rehabilitation of the people who are there, it is challenging to rehabilitate if the environment itself does not support rehabilitation efforts or courses and things of that nature.

I have a chance to sit through some of the courses that we offer our detained population in terms of rehabilitation, teaching 'em how to be better parents or how to get off substance and things of that nature.

And I know sitting in those courses, we have found room that's not designed to be a classroom to try to give this type of curriculum to the residents.

And there are so many environmental distractions that make it challenging to really receive what you're hoping that the inmate gets from the course.

And so my vision is the next facility will, I mean, the day that they're pouring concrete, they will be thinking about mental health, they'll be thinking about courses and designing rooms that support those efforts.

- I know a lot of deputies who being a jailer was a stop on their career path.

Is it time to think about recruiting people who want to do corrections exclusively?

- Yes, so one of the things that I'm considering, and this is probably the first time that I'm going to state this publicly, is that first, I would like to change the name of the building.

You know, I would love for it under my administration to be the Shelby County Sheriff's Office Detention and Rehabilitation Center.

Because what happens inside of that building is rehabilitation.

And so I think when we are talking about recruiting, when people think of the word jail, you know, there's a certain picture that's painted within their eyes.

- Gotta work in the jail.

- Exactly, and it's all about locking people up and keeping 'em behind bars for many, many hours.

And to some degree, that is true.

Those who are a threat to public safety, those who choose to not receive rehabilitation, for whatever the reason may be, then we have to have a secure facility to keep those individuals behind the doors.

But for those who appreciate, who want to change their life, who are looking for opportunities to do that, then the jail as it is known today, is a rehabilitation center.

And those efforts are happening every day inside the facility.

And I do think that if we change the name and the mindset of how that building is viewed, then it will attract other individuals who maybe wouldn't have considered working in a facility like that.

So people maybe who have a background in social work or even mental health, they say, "You know what, I think I wanna work "at the Shelby County Sheriff's Office Detention and Rehabilitation Center."

- Well, about seven minutes left here.

You've been, again, we've mentioned 24 years you started as a patrolman.

We'll try to get to some of the patrol and law enforcement parts beyond the jail, but the jail's been such a topic of conversation.

But you've emphasized rehabilitation as we've talked, and there are people like I who, you know, watch the show, who read The Daily Memphian, and who are out there in the community saying, "Rehabilitation doesn't work with these people."

I've seen the security footage of somebody doing a horrible thing.

I've seen... Why are we giving so much attention to these people who've done terrible stuff?

They haven't gone through trial, fine, but this is not where we wanna spend our time, money, and effort, because rehabilitation just isn't possible, but you seem to believe very differently.

- So here's what I know, of all of the people who, and I mean thousands of people flow through the jail every single year, a majority of those individuals return to the community.

They're our neighbors again, they're the people that we interact with when we go shopping or we go out to entertainment, and so we cannot write rehabilitation off.

Some people just find themselves crossways with the law.

And I say again, for those who want to change their lives, but they need an opportunity, that's what we're gonna do inside the Shelby County Jail.

But for those who choose not to respond to rehabilitation, then that's why we have a jail to keep these individuals behind bars.

And so I think that we have to approach it from two different perspectives.

It can't be all rehabilitation, but then it can't be all lock 'em up and throw away the key.

- Bill may come back to the jail, but one thing we mentioned Memphis Safe Task Force, and separate from the jail part, the corrections part of the Sheriff's Office, you have officers that were out, you know, part of the task force doing arrests that happens in normal times.

- Right.

- They work with US Marshals, but obviously, at a much higher level as the task force started.

- Right.

- From your point of view, what worked right with the task force and what didn't?

And what was your take on the immigration efforts of the Memphis Safe Task Force?

- Yeah, so one thing that... And we're still working with the Memphis Safe Task Force.

One thing that I've been able to appreciate from the task force, particularly in our special operation division, our narcotics detectives, so probably on a daily basis, certainly if not a daily basis, multiple times a week, our narcotics division is executing search warrants throughout the city and the county.

And so before the task force started, when we would execute search warrants for drugs and elements of drug activity, sometimes they would take months to get the federal government to adopt cases that met federal guidelines.

And so right now, we have members of the task force attached to our narcotics units from HSI, DEA, some other federal agencies.

So now, when we execute search warrants and that particular crime meets federal guidelines to be adopted by the federal government, those cases can be adopted right from the location, and we don't have to worry about months, and months, and months of waiting.

And so that's a positive, that's a win for us.

And so what doesn't work or what has been a challenge goes back to the population.

- Sure.

- And so that's the pros and the cons.

And when it comes to the immigration piece, the Sheriff's Office has not been in immigration enforcement.

That's not been the posture of the Sheriff's Office at the street level.

And so, you know, as the sheriff, we'll continue to move in that direction.

We are down 100 deputies on the streets, so we can't focus our attention on trying to enforce immigration law in the communities.

- A couple minutes left here, Bill.

- But Sheriff Bonner has signed an agreement to cooperate with federal immigration officials.

Will that agreement continue if you're elected?

- So the 287[g], I believe, is what we're talking about.

And Sheriff Bonner signed the 287[g] agreement that required or asked the sheriff to hold someone who'd been brought into 201 Poplar or to the jail system for a period of 48 hours to give officials with immigration and customs the time to come and get these individuals from the jail and transfer it into their system.

So we know that the state now has passed laws that pretty much requires the sheriff to do... The sheriffs across Tennessee to do just that.

To house inmates who have been brought in for charges for period to 48 hours.

I think it's actually two different laws that they've written.

I think one law requires the sheriff to enter into a 287[g] agreement.

Then a separate law says that you will recognize detainer warrants coming from ICE.

The short answer for me is I'm not gonna sign anything that I believe disenfranchises any community within Memphis and Shelby County.

However, I have to be compliant with state laws.

And so I'm still reviewing those laws.

I'm not exactly sure what the penalties are should any sheriff choose not to follow the state law.

But as a sheriff, there's no way that I can enforce the law, but then break it at the same time.

So my job and my vision would be to comply with state law.

- All right, there is currently, we've written about it a lot, you may have heard about it, a lawsuit where the sheriff took the mayor to court.

- Right.

- And there's an $18 million settlement.

If you win the... Whoever wins the election, are they still affected by that lawsuit?

- So I think so from a budgetary perspective, and I understand that the county and the County Commission, they have some significant budgetary challenges and they're trying to navigate through all of that.

But at the end of the day, as the sheriff, my job is to provide public safety both inside the jail and outside the jail.

And I got to have a budget that will help me make repairs inside of the jail when I need to and also respond to emergencies within the community when we need to.

And so if the budget does not help me do that, then it's gonna remain a challenge.

But if we... If I can sit down with the next county mayor and the County Commission, they understand what I need as sheriff to run my agency, then we should not have a problem.

But at the end of the day, the everyday citizen is looking for the sheriff to provide a safe community.

- There is also, speaking of state laws that have changed recently, a maintenance of effort requirement.

Is that gonna be something that you are reminding the ex-mayor of constantly?

- I will be, I will be.

One thing about it, I don't want for it to be a four year challenge to have a budget that allows me to do my job in an effective way.

I have constitutional responsibilities as sheriff and I have to meet those constitutional responsibilities, so we can't see the sheriff budget get reduced because the requirements and the job requirements are not going down.

- All right, we didn't give you enough time on that last big question, but we do appreciate you being here, appreciate you, Bill.

We are out of time.

Again, we've reached out to the Republican candidate for county sheriff and hope to get him on soon, Brad Less.

We've got Mickell Lowery, the Democratic candidate for Shelby County Mayor coming up soon, John DeBerry was last week.

And get all this online at wkno.org, The Daily Memphian, and YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Thanks very much, and we'll see you next week.

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