HIGHPOINT, Fla. — The Pinellas County Jail is meant to hold 3,000 people, but right now, they are over capacity. 

What You Need To Know

  • The Pinellas County Jail has around 300 inmates sleeping on the floor on plastic beds

  • HB 1627 created statewide bond recommendations and allows judges to increase bail amounts to what the Florida Supreme Court recommends

  • The sheriff supports HB 1627 but said a couple of tweaks are needed to fix the overcapacity in the jail

Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri said the reason may be connected to House Bill 1627, which took effect at the beginning of this year. 

“We’ve seen the population creep up to about 3,300 inmates and we have about 300 or so on the floor, which is a problem operationally,” said Gualtieri.

HB 1627 created statewide bond recommendations and allows judges to increase bail amounts to what the Florida Supreme Court recommends. 

To lower bail now requires getting a petition for a court to approve it, making it harder for people to bail out. 

However, James Brennan, the Owner of James Brennan Bail Bonds, said he hasn’t noticed much of a change to his business. 

“I think it’s partly with the bail law, that I stand behind, but also in part with the growth of a city that has to understand that we’ve had a lot of people move here in the past, not just only ten years, but more importantly the last four,” he said. 

The sheriff agrees the law is good but said a couple of tweaks are needed.

He said judges part of a special docket recently looked at cases to try to move them along and they’ve already seen some progress.

“I don’t know that we’ll ever get it back down to where it was at 3,000, but if we can just get it down by a couple hundred, we’ll be in better shape,” said Gualtieri.