16 More Genesee County Inmates Released

On Friday, the Genesee County Sheriff's Office released 16 more inmates and moved them to another county as part of that original release program that was put into place with the governor's office and other police agencies. Sheriff Pickell says this allowed for other agencies to put people back into the jail:

"A few weeks ago, we got 104 people out of jail for the weekend and 112 people came back. All of the police agencies had a place to put people because we had beds. Surprisingly we didn't have one homicide over the Fourth of July weekend and the jail really makes a big difference."

The sheriff went on to say that if they can get the violent people off the streets and do it successfully then the county should see the crime rate drop. Of course this is a continued cycle and residents want to know how they're going to solve the overcrowding issue.

For now, the sheriff said they're having meetings with state police, the governor's office and other agencies to figure out the problem. Pickell also said that he doesn't think the governor will just release inmates for a few weeks and then end the program. He really believes that they'll continue to do something meaningful to help out Genesee County.