6/20/2005
Media Contact:
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Mayor, Sheriff endorse bipartisan fixes to jail overcrowding, criminal justice backlog
Peterson, Anderson support plan to cut criminal justice backlog by adding courtrooms, hiring more prosecutors & reducing Crime Lab backlog
INDIANAPOLIS - Mayor Bart Peterson and Sheriff Frank Anderson today said they would endorse a series of bipartisan fixes to end the system-wide backlog that is clogging the Marion County jails and forcing the early release of more and more criminals on the street.
The fixes were recommended after months of analysis by members of the Marion County Criminal Justice Planning Council, the bipartisan group of local officials created in 2003 to address jail overcrowding and other issues in the criminal justice system. Peterson and Anderson are both members of the council.
The bipartisan recommendations are expected to be presented at a full planning council meeting today at 4 p.m.
"The number one job of local government is to move criminals through the system and keep them off the streets for good," Mayor Peterson said.
"The system has been stretched far too thin for far too long and the criminal justice backlog is the main reason our jails are overcrowded," he added. "If we bring criminals to trial quicker, we will open up jail beds, keep them off the street and ensure justice to victims of crime and the entire community."
"Jail overcrowding is a symptom. Today's bipartisan plan attacks the true problem - the bottleneck in the criminal justice funnel," Sheriff Anderson said. "The changes will open up the funnel to allow the system to work more effectively and efficiently. The plan is a giant step toward dismissal of the federal jail litigation of 30-plus years. I thank the public servants who worked so hard on this innovative and well reasoned approach."
The jail overcrowding problem. Last year, police made 29,000 arrests and sent those offenders to the Marion County Jail system. Even though more than 500 beds have been added to the system since 2003, judges have released offenders early because the jail is consistently overstressed.
However, recent estimates show that close to 90 percent of the people in jail at any given time are awaiting trial. As a result, arrestees awaiting trial are taking up jail beds that could be used for new offenders, forcing more and more criminals on the street.
Problems causing the backlog include: not having enough courtrooms and resources to keep up with the caseload, a backlog of DNA testing in the Crime Lab, which can take as long as nine months; and not having enough resources for prosecutors and public defenders.
The faster criminals are tried and moved to the state prison system, the more Marion County jail beds are made available and the fewer early releases are needed, Peterson and Anderson said.
The fixes. The fixes Peterson and Anderson endorsed today are being recommended by a committee of the Criminal Justice Planning Council after months of analysis of the local criminal justice system. In total, there are 12 fixes, including:
• Creating a new major felony court, to move the most dangerous offenders to trial quicker;
• Expanding the Marion County Drug Court, to better crack down on drug use and relate crimes; and
• Reducing backlog in the Marion County Crime Lab, making it easier and quicker for analysts to process DNA and other crime scene evidence. The backlog in the Crime Lab can be reduced from nine months to 45 days with proper staffing.
A 13th fix that is not yet included in the recommendation is adding more resources for criminal prosecutors to move inmates to trial quicker. However, the Mayor and Sheriff said they would push for hiring more prosecutors to make sure the prosecutor's office has enough resources to help solve this problem.
"These fixes will help us address these systematic problems right now," the Mayor said. "We may need other solutions, like more jail beds, at some point in the future, but no amount of jail beds can fix the systematic backlog that is clogging our jail."
Funding. Last year, the City-County Council increased the county option income tax for the first time in 14 years to address jail overcrowding. The move will raise more than $12 million in the first year to begin addressing the trial backlog and jail overcrowding.
Mayor Peterson said his office will take an active role in this issue and committed to pushing for these fixes to pass through the City-County Council, as well as getting these fixes implemented as soon as possible.
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