“We couldn’t do it without him.”
Six powerful words said by Anderson County Sheriff Russell Barker. “Him” in his quote refers to Anderson County Sheriff’s Office (ACSO) Corrections Lt. Jeff Smith, the Operations Lieutenant for the ACSO Detention Center that houses a daily average of 400 inmates.
Jeffery Allen Smith is 55, born and reared in Clinton. He has been at the ACSO for 24 years and 2026 is his 19th consecutive year working in Corrections. As the Operations lieutenant, he supervises three shift floor sergeants and 43 Corrections deputies spread across the shifts. Smith said that on the day we spoke, the jail population was 380, of whom 70 were women.
The detention center is a busy place. And Smith loves it, the people who work there, and the people who report to him…