Marshall County Sheriff Matt Hassel gave the Marshall County Council members an update on jail operations Monday morning and the topic of the jail expansion came up.
“Do we need to add on to the jail?” asked Councilman Jon VanVactor.
Sheriff Hassel said the population was down to 152 on Monday morning. It is quite an improvement since the overcrowding situation last year when the population was 308, well over the 239 recommended bed capacity.
The overcrowding caused several damage claim lawsuits and lawsuits involving the American Civil Liberties Union. The sheriff wants to show that judicial officials are making an effort to address the overcrowding situation by moving cases along in the system and utilizing Criminal Rule 26.
Hassel said the conversation should stay on the table.
“I just can’t speculate,” commented Hassel. “I never thought when I put my name in to be sheriff that I’d even be worried about having to build a bigger jail! How do you explain what happened to us last year? In April and May, we hit the capacity level and then we went up to 308 inmates. That could happen very easily this summer.”
He prevously asked the council to appropriate money at his request in his budget to house inmates in a neighboring facility to help alleviate the overcrowding situation. It turned out that Hassel did not need to house inmates in another facility as several court hearings allowed inmates to be sentenced and transported to Department of Correction facilities. However, he wants to keep that money for that purpose.
Hassel commented that 75 percent of all of the jails in the state were above 80 percent capacity or overcrowding so it is a statewide issue.
The council clarified that if the proposed jail expansion moves forward, a Local Income Tax would fund the jail and not property taxes. The money can only be used for the construction and operations at the jail.
Hassel indicated that COVID-19 slowed operations to a point, but the Undercover Narcotic Investigation Team remains active as well as officers for the county and municipal departments. He says outstanding warrants, including failure to appear, and operating a vehicle while intoxicated incidents are common bookings at the jail, but drug investigations are ongoing.
