Family and friends of a Benton County Jail inmate said recent incidents raise questions about training standards, inmate safety and staffing.

Jail personnel countered they've increased staff training and adjusted policies to improve conditions and safety.

The jail isn't safe for inmates, said Orene Scott, whose brother Charles Scott was wrongly transferred to Texarkana by jail staff in January.

"Just because someone is in jail, that doesn't mean that they don't have rights -- that they don't have civil rights -- and they don't matter," Scott said.

State officials said the jail is run professionally, even though a standards committee noted the staff has included undertrained jailers.

Scott said she worries about her brother's safety and believes other inmates are at risk.

In a letter provided by family members, inmate Charles Scott wrote the jail is overcrowded and some inmates are sleeping on the floor at times. Jailers constantly use physical force, Scott wrote.

Keshia Guyll, Sheriff's Office spokeswoman, said jailers don't use excessive force. She didn't respond to follow-up questions Thursday.

In January, jail staff misidentified Scott as inmate Keith Scott and transferred him to the Southwest Arkansas Community Correction Center in Texarkana. The 12-plus hour round trip from Bentonville to Texarkana and back was physically painful for Charles Scott, said John Tilley, Scott's longtime friend.

"My No. 1 concern is (Charles') safety," Tilley said. "His family feels like Benton County doesn't know what the hell they are doing because they are overcrowded."

Jail staff members didn't listen when Charles Scott questioned whether he was the right inmate before leaving Benton County, Tilley said. Guyll said Scott never raised concerns and was excited to leave the jail. Scott wasn't mistreated or injured during transport, she said.

Other inmates also have complained about how the jail is run, Tilley said.

In November, inmate Christopher Ward filed a civil lawsuit in U.S. District Court-Western District of Arkansas claiming jailers use excessive force on inmates, mislabeled his crime and refused to give him adequate access to the law library.

No court documents in the case had been filed by county representatives as of Thursday. An attorney representing the jail didn't return a message left Thursday.

In the past year, the jail has made changes, said Jeremy Guyll, jail captain.

Partly in response to concerns, the Benton County Sheriff's Office made policy changes last month to make sure inmates aren't wrongly identified, Jeremy Guyll said. Those changes include a stamp that better displays which inmates are destined for state prison and having three people check and verify names on the inmate list for transport.

In the past two months, officials have expanded training for jailers, bumping training hours among jailers up from 168 total hours to 612 hours, said Matt West, training coordinator. In 2013, jailers had 18,000 total hours of documented training, West said.

The state requires 40 hours of training on jail standards by the first year of employment.

Families should be concerned because their loved one is in a jail, but not worried about the Benton County Jail itself, Keshia Guyll said.

"I'd be concerned, not because it's not safe (at the jail), but because it's jail," Guyll said.

Training And Turnover

The state Criminal Detention Facilities Review Committee released a report in July noting the Benton County Jail had five undertrained jailers. The group evaluates jail conditions statewide.

The review doesn't mean the jail is out of compliance with state standards, said Danny Hickman, coordinator of the jail committee. Many jails have undertrained staff because of the high turnover rates among jails statewide. High stress and low pay means jailers often get training and then move on to a different position or agency, said Hickman, a former Boone County sheriff.

Hickman said he has no issues with the Benton County Jail. The board received only one inmate complaint about the jail, he said.

"Benton and Washington counties, both of them, are running a good show," Hickman said. "Both of them are very professional."

West said the jailers in the state's report were new hires and were properly trained within the year.

Training new jailers get in Benton County is above what the state requires, West said. The county has expanded training to make sure jailers and inmates are kept safe, he said.

"It's our responsibility to keep them safe," Jeremy Guyll said.

Training among jailers includes getting paired with more experienced Sheriff's Office employees to see how all the divisions work together, West said. Jailers also are trained on how to de-escalate situations among inmates and how to deal with stress. Jailers also learn ethics and civil rights issues, West said.

To lower the turnover rate at the Benton County Jail, internal staff are promoted to coveted positions. That's a change from 2012, Jeremy Guyll said.

The training and policy changes seem to be benefiting the jail, West and Guyll said.

The jail hasn't had any staff turnover so far this year. Last year, turnover among jailers was 30 percent, Guyll said. In 2004, the turnover rate was 73 percent, he said.

At the same time, the number of lawsuits against the jail has declined in the past year, according to information from Rainwater, Holt & Sexton, which oversees lawsuits involving the jail.

Numbers for how many lawsuits are pending against the Sheriff's Office and jail weren't available Thursday, Keisha Guyll said. No one from Rainwater, Holt & Sexton returned a message asking about the lawsuits.

Jeremy Guyll pointed out jails see complaints from inmates all the time. Those complaints are investigated, but many times inmates are trying to work the system by filing grievances and lawsuits. Sometimes an inmate files excessive complaints, he said.

Ward, the inmate who filed a federal lawsuit against Sheriff Kelley Cradduck and others, reported about 20 grievances a day when he was at the jail, Guyll said. U.S. District Court records show Ward filed a similar suit against the county in 2012 -- when Keith Ferguson was sheriff -- that was dismissed.

Understaffed

The Benton County Jail is understaffed for the size of its inmate population, but no plans are under way to hire jailers, Keshia Guyll said. That decision is made by the Quorum Court.

The jail has 86 full-time jailers and two part-time jailers who oversee about 600 inmates, Guyll said. Between 13 and 15 jailers work 12-hour shifts, he said.

On Thursday, the jail held 591 inmates, according to it's website. The jail's capacity is 642, according to the state's report.

No ratio exists at the state or federal level to say how many inmates a jailer should oversee to ensure safety, according to Hickman and the American Jail Association.

Even so, the Benton County Jail has about 50 fewer jailers than the Washington County Detention Center and oversees a similar-sized population, said Maj. Randall Denzer, Washington County jail administrator.

The detention center had 136 jailers overseeing 565 inmates Wednesday, Denzer said.

The detention center reached near capacity in February, officials there said. Until recently, the inmate population was about 625, Denzer said. Arkansas prisons are at capacity and prisoners are staying at county jails longer, he said. Statewide, jails are filling up.

At the Benton County Jail, the inmate population surged from about 400 to 680 in four months last year, West said. The state review committee said the jail had 430 inmates July 2.

West said some Benton County inmates who should have been sent to prison are staying at the jail too long. Charles Scott has been at the jail since Aug. 28.

Despite the inmate population's increase, the jail has kept about the same number of jailers, Keshia Guyll said.

As crowding continues, fights among inmates increase, assaults go up and tensions run high, Denzer said.

"It's hard for everybody," Denzer said.

Washington County's jail has had its own problems, including an inmate who reported being raped by other inmates in December. The detention center has about 15 lawsuits against it, Denzer said.

To make sure jailers are doing what they are supposed to, the detention center uses software allowing Denzer to track how many times a jailer uses force, he said. Jailers who have a high number of use-of-force reports are scrutinized. He also hears from inmates when a jailer isn't checking cells every hour, he said.

The Benton County Jail doesn't have a way to track use of force among jailers, number of grievances from inmates or the number of fights among inmates, Jeremy Guyll said. The captain said he would like to modify the jail's software to better track incidents, but that costs money.

Orene Scott said the changes at the jail aren't enough to ease her concern.

"I'd like for them to be held accountable," Scott said of jailers. "It's not just a single incident. It's scary."