A public meeting Monday night allowed several officials who deal with criminal justice and legal aspects of the judicial system to explain information behind the proposed jail expansion project.
The jail was built in 2008 with a recommended capacity for 239 inmates. Just 11 years later, the population exceeded that number. County government officials are currently weighing options on how to move forward with a proposed jail expansion project.
Sheriff Matt Hassel first shared statistics concerning the jail population which led to the overcrowding situation. Going back to 2014 there was an average daily population of about 130, in 2017 it was 153, in 2018 it was 210, and in 2019 the numbers varied from 218 to 272. The record number was 308. On Monday, Jan. 6, the population was 250. A majority of the inmates are in jail for felony charges while a small percentage remains on misdemeanor charges. About 70 percent of the population makes up out-of-county residents.
Currently, most of the inmates are waiting to go through the judicial process.
Some charges are serious enough that the cash bond is too high and the inmate can’t bond out of jail. Hassel said he often gets requests asking not to allow inmates to bond out of jail.
“I’ve had several family members call me and say, ‘Don’t bond him out. Don’t let him get out. He needs to stay there so he can dry out or he’s going to die’,” said Hassel.
Hassel mentioned that the bonding schedule has been modified on the judicial side.
Another statistic that has come into play is the number of women in the facility.
“Another problem that we’re really dealing with and people don’t understand is for years the female population has always been around 10 or 12 percent. Now, it’s up to 25 percent. We didn’t build the facility to have that much separation for the two sexes.”
Sheriff Hassel also noted that efforts were made to house the inmates with the space available when the numbers crept over capacity.
“We purchased bed totes for the inmates once we went over population because I didn’t want them sleeping on the floor. We spent over $10,000 to buy those totes. We repurposed one of the recreation rooms into a dormitory cell so we could put more inmates in there. We added three new turnkey dispatch positions to help deal with the inmate population and staffing.”
An intergovernmental agreement was signed by the commissioners to house inmates in Elkhart County, but that facility is now full.
Work has been done to reduce the population with new judicial measure which will be discussed in a future newscast.
Hassel commented that a committee began meeting in 2018 to review the situation and look into the possibility of expansion.
Treatment programs are available to inmates, but some residents fear there are too few programs available to them. Sheriff Hassel said the jail offers Moral Recognition Therapy and works with the Bowen Center for programs for offenders.
A solid decision to move forward with the jail expansion has not yet been made. The Marshall County Council and Commissioners will make those decisions in upcoming meetings. The full 320-bed addition to the existing facility could cost upward of $19 million with the sale of General Obligation bonds.
More on Sheriff Hassel’s presentation can be heard this Sunday during the Maximum Impact Program at noon on MAX 98.3 FM. Some information from Prosecutor Nelson Chipman’s presentation will be featured in tomorrow’s news.
