GREENFIELD — A record number of inmates crammed into the Hancock County Jail this week — enough offenders for two jails at the state’s suggested maximum capacity.
Sheriff-elect Brad Burkhart said 259 inmates were inside the 157-bed jail on Wednesday morning, bringing it to almost 165 percent capacity. An additional 53 county offenders are in other Indiana jails, he added, mostly to free up space here.
The increase in the inmate population isn’t due to a spike in specific arrests, Burkhart said. It’s just a new reality for the criminal justice system. He said most inmates re-offend and get arrested for violating probation, while others stay as they await trial or accrue time-served credit for plea agreements.
“It’s just a revolving door,” he said. “I don’t see it slowing down in any means.”
The jail had 176 inmates in November 2017 and 234 near the end of July, according to stories in Daily Reporter at the time. Burkhart said the state recommends that jails shouldn’t house more than 80 percent of a facility’s capacity. That’s 125 inmates for Hancock County — about half of the current population.
The county has been attempting to build a new facility for years to alleviate overcrowding.
County officials are now awaiting the schematic design of a new jail on land commonly called the county farm along U.S. 40 between County Roads 400E and 500E. Brad Armstrong, president of the Hancock County Board of Commissioners, said Indianapolis-based RQAW, the engineering firm paid by the county to study the jail, will most likely present the design to the commissioners in January.
That’s the same month the Hancock County Council plans to vote on an 0.2 percent income tax increase to fund the jail. The council will couple that rate hike with a revenue bond as a stopgap before the county can start collecting income taxes to pay for the first phase of the criminal justice facility.
Tentatively, the design of the facility will have two jail pods, which could hold upward of 440 inmates, and construction would last about two years. Part of one of the structures, dubbed as “half-a-pod,” could be built within a year’s time and house about 160 inmates in a dormitory-style area with bunk-beds. It will include a kitchen, laundry, nurse’s office and intake space.
The total cost of the jail project is still unknown, but the tax increase could collect about $30 million.
At a county budget committee meeting on Wednesday, county attorney Ray Richardson said the council passing the income tax ordinance at their Jan. 9 meeting is contingent on the Indiana Department of Local Government Finance’s approval. If the department OK’s the ordinance, then the project is slated to be bid out for construction in May and crews could start breaking ground on a new jail in July.
That means jail staff won’t be able to move inmates to the “half-a-pod” until at least mid-2020.
Burkhart said he’s glad the county has gained some traction on the plan, a project officials have been discussing for eight years. But he’s disappointed the jail won’t get relief for overcrowding sooner.
“I’m at the point where I don’t care where you put it, whether it’s in town or whether it’s out (at the county farm),” Burkhart said. “You just got to do something.”
When state lawmakers changed a law requiring counties to house sentenced Level 6 felons instead of sending them to the Indiana Department of Correction, it caused most Indiana county jails to exceed their capacity. The Indiana Sheriffs' Association estimates 96 percent of jail cells are full across the state, and 40 to 45 counties are looking at building new or renovating their existing correctional facilities.
Hancock County has most recently sent 46 Level 6 offenders — 40 men and six women — to jails in LaGrange and Daviess counties. Burkhart said with the Hancock County Jail’s population continuing to rise, the county plans to send 20 more men to Daviess County this week and six additional women next week.
But that comes at a cost to the county. The state reimburses counties $35 a day for each sentenced Level 6 felon. Since Hancock County will now house 72 Level 6 inmates in LaGrange and Daviess counties, the reimbursement — $2,520 a day — is funneled from Hancock County to those two counties.
According to financial documents from the Hancock County auditor’s office, between August 2017 and September 2018, the county sent $490,070 in state reimbursement funds to LaGrange and Daviess counties.