(a) If confinement is directed, the court shall designate the place of confinement as a local jail or workhouse if required pursuant to § 40-35-104(b) or, if the sentence is eight (8) years or less and combined with periodic or split confinement not to exceed one (1) year, the court shall designate the place of confinement as a local jail or workhouse. If confinement in a local jail or workhouse is not mandated by § 40-35-104(b), § 40-35-306 or § 40-35-307, all convicted felons sentenced after November 1, 1989, to continuous confinement for a period of one (1) year or more shall be sentenced to the department of correction. After November 1, 1989, if a court sentences or has sentenced a defendant to a local jail or workhouse when the court was not authorized to do so by this chapter, it shall be deemed that the sentence was a sentence to the department, and the commissioner of correction shall have the authority to take the defendant into the custody of the department.

(b)

(1) When imposing the sentence to the local jail or workhouse, the defendant is eligible for release classification status as provided in this chapter; however, the court may specify an earlier percentage of eligibility for all programs except parole. This percentage shall be expressed in one (1) of the following numeric percentages: zero percent (0%), ten percent (10%), twenty percent (20%), thirty percent (30%), forty percent (40%) or fifty percent (50%); provided, that the percentage shall be no higher than the release eligibility percentage under § 40-35-501.

(2) In the event the judgment does not specify a percentage as provided in subdivision (b)(1), the defendant shall be eligible for the programs, except parole, six (6) months prior to release eligibility date under § 40-35-501.

(c) The court shall retain full jurisdiction over the defendant during the term of the sentence and may reduce or modify the sentence or may place the defendant on probation supervision where otherwise eligible. Following the first application, applications to reduce or to alter the manner of the service of the sentence may be made at no less than two (2) month intervals.

(d) If a defendant serving a felony sentence violates any condition or rule of the local jail or workhouse, the court shall have full authority to sentence the defendant to continuous confinement in the department of correction for a period not to exceed the remainder of the full sentence originally imposed.

(e) If a defendant serving a felony sentence in a local jail or workhouse develops medical problems that the local jail or workhouse is not equipped to treat, the court shall have full authority to transfer the defendant to the department of correction. If transfer is ordered under this subsection (e), the court shall retain full jurisdiction over the defendant to reduce or modify the sentence.

(f) Subsection (b) also applies to defendants sentenced to the department during the time the defendants are being housed in a local jail or workhouse awaiting transfer to the department as provided in § 40-35-212(d).

(g)

(1) Any defendant convicted of a felony and sentenced to serve such sentence in a local jail or workhouse pursuant to this section, § 40-35-104(b), § 40-35-306, or § 40-35-307 shall be ordered, as a part of the sentence, to participate in any work program operated by the jail or workhouse in which the defendant is incarcerated.

(2) The sheriff may opt the county out of the requirements of this subsection (g) if the sheriff's local jail or workhouse does not operate a work program or, if it does operate such a program, the increased number of inmates participating would exceed the sheriff's ability to provide security, transportation, or requested work projects.

(3) The sheriff may excuse any one (1) or more individual inmates sentenced to the work program if, in the judgment of the sheriff:

(A) The inmate would pose a security or escape risk to the public or other inmates if allowed to participate in a work program outside the facility;

(B) The inmate has physical or mental health conditions that would preclude the inmate from successfully participating in a work program or would endanger others if allowed to participate; or

(C) The county cannot afford to provide the security or transportation for one (1) or more inmates sentenced to the work program pursuant to this section.

(4) Any inmate who knowingly refuses to participate in a work program after being sentenced to do so pursuant to this section shall be considered to have violated a rule of the local jail or workhouse and the court may act upon such violation as provided in subsection (d).

(5) The liability of any county whose local jail or workhouse operates a work program shall not be increased or changed solely because the work program uses inmates sentenced to the program pursuant to this subsection (g).