Jail Expansion: Do We Really Need It?

The recent debate about the Economic Development Income Tax has raised questions about the need for a proposed jail expansion and the number of prisoners the Kosciusko County Jail currently houses.

Kosciusko County Council will meet Saturday at 3 p.m. to vote on EDIT after hearing public comments.

County commissioners have said money generated from EDIT would be used to help pay for the expansion of the Kosciusko County Jail.

Remonstrators against EDIT also oppose using EDIT funds to expand the jail. Jail expansion does fall under the categories in which EDIT money can be used.

Last year, the Indiana Civil Liberties Union notified Kosciusko County officials that overcrowding was not acceptable.

ICLU Executive Director John Krull said Monday all persons are presumed innocent until proven guilty. While an inmate is in jail awaiting trial, Krull said, they have a right to be housed in a safe place.

"There's also some liability problems," Krull said. "If a person is mistreated or, God forbid, dies (because of overcrowding), there is a question of meeting the state's responsibilities."

He said ICLU is generally notified of overcrowding by someone who has a complaint, usually an inmate. ICLU investigates and makes a judgment call as to whether or not to pursue it further on a case-by-case basis.

"In a lot of cases, we find that a lot of sheriffs are aware of the overcrowding," he said. "They usually are willing to work with us to avoid a lawsuit."

Kosciusko County Administrator Ron Robinson said a needs assessment was performed in 1987 by Schenkel Schultz Architectural Firm, Fort Wayne, when Robinson was first elected sheriff. The assessment projected how many prisoners would be in the jail over a number of years.

"What they said in 1987 -Êthe jail bookings are almost right with what they said," Robinson said.

The current county jail has capacity for 88 prisoners. Now in preliminary stages, the proposed expanded county jail would hold 300 inmates. Sheriff Aaron Rovenstine said 300 was probably the minimum.

Rovenstine said, "That's not a set number. That's just a number that has been kicked around by the (jail expansion) committee."

To the best of his knowledge, Rovenstine said, the most prisoners held in the county jail at one time was 196. There were 3,256 persons booked into the county jail during 1998.

In January, the number of jail prisoners ranged from about 125 to 145 per day. As of Feb. 21, the jail population ranged from 130 to about 157 per day during the month. Those numbers do not include inmates on work release.

In 1987, Schenkel & Schultz reported there were 44 inmates per day in the county jail. They predicted 160 per day by January 1998 and 170 by 1999. By September 2010, their projection, which so far is only off by a few inmates, said there would be 305 inmates in the Kosciusko County Jail each day.

Rovenstine said Monday there are currently about 35 prisoners in the jail who have been convicted of crimes in Kosciusko County and are waiting to be transferred to Indiana Department of Corrections facilities.

Rovenstine said there are only four out-of-county inmates, and they are in the work release program. He said some counties don't have work release or those in the program may already work in this county so are allowed in the Kosciusko County work release program.

Inmates on the work release program pay 25 percent of their pay back to the county in which they serve, Rovenstine said.

He also said the jail currently houses no inmates from outside Kosciusko County. If they do house a prisoner for IDOC, either from Kosciusko County awaiting transfer to prison or from another part of the state at the request of IDOC, the state pays $35 per prisoner per day.

According to 1996 figures, Rovenstine said, it costs the county $21 a day to house a prisoner. Figures for the current year have not yet been calculated.

Indiana pays medical fees for prisoners, Robinson said, and $1.44 per meal for all inmates.

"We're not losing any money by housing any prisoners," he said.

Rovenstine said the only time Kosciusko County Jail houses another county's prisoners is at the request of another sheriff. It is usually a reciprocal agreement. The last out-of-county inmate held in the Kosciusko County Jail was the man who killed a Goshen police officer and was held here out of concern for his safety -Êthe main reason Kosciusko County jail houses an out-of-county inmate on occasion, Rovenstine said.

That Goshen inmate also fits a pattern to the type of individuals held in the Kosciusko County Jail -Êyoung white males.

"Definitely men are the most arrested," Rovenstine said. "We're seeing an increase in Hispanic males. It's (predominantly) the age group of 21 to 35, white males."

Most inmates in Kosciusko County jail are held for alcohol- and drug-related charges, he said.