By Kelly McKinney
Central Kentucky News
JESSAMINE COUNTY, Ky. — E-cigarettes don’t really light up, but they have lit up canteen sales at the jail.
Jon Sallee, county jailer, says sale of the cigarettes has raised more than $6,000 for the Jessamine County Detention Center’s canteen fund since December, when the facility first started selling them. Salle said he started selling them because he knew they would generate money for the canteen fund, which pays for inmate programs such as the GED program and garden program, which allows inmates to grow and maintain a garden outside the facility. It also pays for other benefits for the inmates such as the TV bill.
“Anything that benefits the inmates is paid for through that fund,” he said. But the sale of the cigarettes has had other advantages, Sallee said. Inmates are paying off their jail bills, such as their bookings fees, to be able to buy them. “They can’t buy anything from the canteen until their fees are paid,” he said. “We’ve seen more and more paying those off.”
Also, contraband has become less of a problem. Before the e-cigarettes became available, the jail had a problem with inmates sneaking in tobacco products, Sallee said. There has been much less of that happening.
Full story: E-cigarettes sales lighting up detention center’s canteen fund