Anniston, AL -  

A new report shows an alarming number of weapons and contraband have been found in the hands of some of Calhoun County's most dangerous criminals. It's happening while they're behind bars.

In the maximum security lock down sector inside the Calhoun County Jail anything is a weapon - even toilet paper soaked in human waste.

Sheriff Larry Amerson explains, "Any body waste is something they can use to intimidate our staff. They can use it as a weapon to try and influence our behavior."

In a November 2008 interview inmate Jarell Price said, "They wonder why we act the way we act in here, and we be screaming and hollering and raising hell and screaming at each other and arguing at each other because we have built up anger in us."

This month Price was convicted of capital murder and caught with a makeshift knife, constructed from a toothbrush and a plastic fork. It's what alerted Circuit Court Judge Joel Laird to the contraband discovered in thirteen out of fifteen high-risk cells.

Amerson says, "We're glad of the court's concern. We're glad of the attention that it brings because it's real. Since 1995 our jail population has gone from 180 inmates to the ballpark of 480."

That's a two hundred sixty-percent increase in inmates with the same staff of jailers. There's no funding for more. Outnumbered officers search cells everyday. Over time they've confiscated dozens of primative weapons made from bed frames, mop handles, even metal found inside shoes. It's a major challenge with no solution in sight.

Amerson explains, "We have to give them utinsils to brush their teeth with, to eat with."

Those items aren't only used as weapons, but recently an inmate attempted to dig out of his cell with metal from a bed frame. He got a few inches deep.

Despite the attempt Amerson says the jail is secure and the search for contraband is neverending.

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