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| Jail Crowding Crisis Builds in Ind. County |
| By Indianapolis Star |
| Published: 08/27/2002 |
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Cornelius Cooper has been arrested on a murder charge, served 11 months in a Kentucky prison for manslaughter and been convicted on several drug possession charges. Yet he was one of the 95 inmates Marion Superior Court Judge William Young chose to release last month, while people accused of nonviolent crimes such as prostitution and theft remained behind bars. What's more, when Young released those inmates July 25, there still was plenty of room in the Marion County Jail, according to The Indianapolis Star. The decision to release those high-risk inmates because of jail overcrowding has caused outrage among City-County Council members, other judges and the public. Some think Young and Marion County Sheriff Jack Cottey, both Republicans, are releasing the worst of the worst onto Indianapolis streets to force fiscal leaders and council members into spending millions to solve a decades-old jail overcrowding problem. Young, who has volunteered to try to manage the overcrowding, said that's not true. From Jan. 1 to July 31, Young ordered the release of 2,287 inmates. He said it's to avoid running afoul of the federal judge who has been overseeing a lawsuit against the county filed 30 years ago by the Indiana Civil Liberties Union over crowded conditions at the jail and lockup. But currently, only the lockup -- two floors in the City-County Building where people who are arrested go to be fingerprinted and charged -- has a court-imposed population limit. That number is 297. A similar ceiling at the jail was lifted three years ago. The facility has 1,284 permanent beds and 250 temporary bunks, so technically there's room for more than 1,500 inmates. At 10 p.m. July 25, the day Cooper was released, there were 1,346 people in the jail. U.S. District Judge Sarah Evans Barker has made it clear the county could face new sanctions if the sheriff tries to cram too many people into the facility. That's why both Cottey and Young say they operate under a self-imposed cap of 1,300 inmates. Otherwise, Cottey said, there would be too many people for the jail staff to keep under control. |
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