Jail Con 2024 welcomed to Mobile, Mardi Gras style

MOBILE, Ala. (WKRG) — Hundreds of correctional officers and sheriff officers from the Southeast are in Mobile for the 2024 Jail Con conference hosted by the National Institute for Jail Operations.

“We provide the top training to the entire country on what it takes to run a constitutionally safe facility,” NIJO Executive Director Tate McCotter said.

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This is the first year the conference is hosted in Mobile, and the Mobile County Sheriff’s Office decided it was only right to give the out-of-towners a taste of what Mobile is truly about.

“I mean we are the birthplace of Mardi Gras,” Lt. Keenisha Wallace with Mobile County Metro Jail said.

At the conference, officers are attending classes to learn what exactly people in jail are constitutionally entitled to including how to provide safety for the inmates, grievances, religious rights, food and medications.

McCotter said the biggest problem he sees in the jail system is the continued decline of mental health within the inmates.

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“Jails have become the dumping ground for the mentally ill,” McCotter said.

Mental illness is just one of the leading causes of the overcrowding issues in jails, according to McCotter.

“When you have a population that exceeds what it was built for, it can create a lot of issues,” McCotter said.

Jail Con 2024 wraps up on Friday.

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