MUNCIE — The decades-old county jail has enough beds for just over 200 inmates but regularly houses as many as 300.
If you guessed this described Delaware County's well-known jail overcrowding problem, you're right. But it's actually the problem faced by neighboring Madison County.
As a matter of fact, nearly two dozen of Indiana's 92 counties are facing jail issues such as aging facilities and inmate overcrowding.
The crucial difference is how they're dealing with those problems. In Delaware County, the county commissioners are pursuing a $45 million jail project that would lead to a 500-bed jail being built in the former ASONS/Wilson Middle School building. Courts and other offices connected to the justice system would move, along with the jail, to the city's far south side.
But in Madison County, where the jail was built in 1984 — making it eight years older than the Delaware County Justice Center — there are no immediate plans to build a new jail. Officials are working together to minimize inmate overcrowding.
But even in Madison County, the sheriff acknowledges that a new jail is needed. Someday.
In August 2017, Chance Sweat, a jail inspector for the Indiana Department of Correction, wrote to the Delaware County commissioners to tell them that the county's jail was understaffed and overcrowded. The jail was non-compliant with state jail standards and could expect "a critical incident."