A program typically used in prisons is being implemented at the Shelby County Jail at 201 Poplar Ave.

Shelby County Sheriff Floyd Bonner Jr. talked about the program during a press conference Wednesday, Oct. 4, the eve of the City of Memphis' election in which he is a candidate for mayor.

The Shelby County Sheriff’s Office is using new partnerships in the effort, which is aimed at reducing violent crime both inside and outside of the jail and providing therapeutic training to jail detainees.

Jail inmate found dead at 201 Poplar, TBI investigating

Those partnerships are with two organizations, Inside Circle and Inward Journey. Inside Circle is a California-based nonprofit that runs programs, highlighted by the use of peer-guided healing circles, in adult and juvenile detention centers across the U.S.

Inward Journey is a Memphis-based educational training and experience organization geared toward Black people. 

Bonner said his office has been working to launch the program for three years, but COVID-19 restrictions put a wrench in those plans.

“We finally got to the stage where we can implement it now in the jail,” Bonner said during the press conference, held in ninth-floor conference room at the Shelby County Criminal Justice Center. “But it’s about critical thinking, stages of personal accountability, violence intervention, as well as mental and emotional well-being.”

Starting Oct. 16, Inside Circle and Inward Journey will work with persons incarcerated at the Shelby County Jail every Monday from 9 a.m. to noon. Ten inmates and 25 staff members have volunteered to participate in the pilot program.

The organizations are targeting influencers and “shot callers,” or gang members with high statuses, said James McLeary, an Inside Circle elder council member.

He said his program has seen success in other states, including New York and New Jersey.

“In New York, we’re working with the Crips and the Bloods,” McLeary said. “And we work with both of those groups.”

McLeary said the program uses evidence-based practices to help system-impacted people, including through cognitive behavioral therapy and insight therapy.

“We ... take our young people who have fire in the belly and take them off and help guide them and contain all that energy,” McLeary said. “As an elder told me, ‘If you don’t contain that fire, that fire will burn down the building.’”

“We ... take our young people who have fire in the belly and take them off and help guide them and contain all that energy. As an elder told me, ‘If you don’t contain that fire, that fire will burn down the building.’”

James McLeary
An Inside Circle elder council member

Al Lewis, director of Inward Journey, said he has worked with McLeary since 1993 and connected him with SCSO.

Bonner said the county jail, located at 201 Poplar Ave., is one of the first pretrial facilities to participate in the program, which usually works in prisons.

“But if we can change the mindset here with the time that we have, we think we can make a better community,” Bonner said.

Chief jailer Kirk Fields said the new program will be a “game changer” for the facility, which he described as “a microcosm of our community.”

“Sometimes there are incidents that take place in jail that all result from incidents that take place in the community, and vice versa,” Fields said. “We believe if we get the right people at the table and the right conversations that we will see a drop in some of our violent incidents both inside the jail and inside our community.”

If the program is successful, Bonner also hopes to implement it in the Shelby County Juvenile Court system.

‘We need mental health facilities’

Bonner’s press conference also came on the same day of an inmate’s death in the county jail. The man died after being “found unresponsive, apparently due to a suicide” shortly after 4 a.m. Wednesday, according to SCSO.

When asked about the death of the unidentified inmate Wednesday, Bonner said funding has prevented SCSO from providing proper mental health care.

Attack ads blanket the airwaves in the home stretch of Memphis mayor’s race

“Memphis is no different than anywhere else. We need mental health facilities,” he said.

Bonner said he has gotten the State of Tennessee to approve additional beds at Memphis Mental Health Institute for detainees who need mental health services.

Also, his office recently received about $2.6 million in grants — approved by the Shelby County Commission — that will go toward ensuring detainees receive mental health care, Bonner said. He hopes a request-for-proposal for bids on those services will come in about two weeks.

McLeary said his organization has helped one prison detainee in particular who was contemplating suicide because he wasn’t able to see his son.

After receiving services from Inside Circle, he said the man was able to move to a lower-security prison and is now able to see his son regularly.

Dog groomer plans training academy in former Whitehaven vet’s office

“By the end of the four-day circle, he had a renewed sense of self and purpose,” McCleary said.

There have been a total of five deaths inside 201 Poplar so far in 2023.

The Daily Memphian reported in June that there had been 40 deaths inside 201 Poplar since 2019. The Commercial Appeal expanded that data, finding 52 deaths had occurred since 2016 for those in SCSO custody. 

Just City Executive Director Josh Spickler said last night’s death “underscores disturbing mismanagement and the need for comprehensive action on the part of Sheriff Bonner and his office.”

“We do not need election-time stunts or band-aid solutions,” Spickler said. “Our community deserves to know and expect that when a loved one enters the jail, they will one day return home safely.”