Indiana may help with additional local corrections costs

The reforms, passed over two years by state lawmakers, are set up for violent offenders to serve more time in state prisons, while offenders convicted of less serious felonies will serve their sentences in county jails or local corrections programs.

The measure provides $50 million per year toward a new grant program for counties that need help establishing and maintaining community corrections programs and adopting alternative programs to jail time.

The legislation is the funding mechanism for the reforms, and reporting requirements exist so the state can gain a better feel of exactly what local governments need funding wise in the future, said state Rep. Greg Steuerwald, an Avon Republican.

“We certainly hear from locals quite a bit that there’s a great need,” Steuerwald said, who is sponsoring the bill.

Warrick County Sheriff Brett Kruse said it’s too early to know how the reforms will impact his county. Because most of the key reforms took effect in July, court cases under the changes have yet to cycle through the system, Kruse said. While he’s concerned the reforms will increase Warrick’s jail population, the county will need to wait and see how the reforms affect the jail census and costs for feeding, housing and inmate medical care, Kruse said.

“We are kind of gearing up and preparing for more inmates to be sentenced to community corrections,” Kruse said.

Kruse said he anticipates Warrick County would be interested in applying for the grant dollars. Alternative programs are necessary under the reforms, Kruse said, because they cause the criminal justice system to rethink how offenders carry out a sentence so they don’t return or reoffend.

Local lawmakers say the grant funds are needed, including state Reps. Holli Sullivan, an Evansville Republican, and Gail Riecken, an Evansville Democrat, who both sit on the House’s lead fiscal committee, Ways & Means.

Sullivan said the measure provides for creative ways for counties to become involved in the grant program.

“What’s good for Vanderburgh County might not be good for Northwest Indiana,” Sullivan said who explained the program allows counties to put together proposals that are “best for their local environments.”

Riecken said the state needs to increase the reimbursement county jails receive to house Indiana Department of Correction offenders. Currently, the rate is $35 per day.

“I understand they are looking at an explosion of population in the local jails,” Riecken said.

State Rep. Thomas Washburne, an Evansville Republican who also chairs the House Courts and Criminal Code Committee, said the state is moving toward a boarder view of what it means to deter crime.

“But that takes resources to deal with that, and so I think the General Assembly recognizes that what we are asking the court to do now is broader than it has been and they need the resources to be able to get the court personnel…everybody involved in the criminal justice system who will evaluate, plan and implement the appropriate response to a crime,” Washburne said.

The grant dollars are on top of funding local programs already receive from the Department of Correction. In 2014, the department provided $40 million to reimburse community corrections programs, according to a fiscal analysis of the bill.

The Department of Correction anticipates housing prisoners for a longer period of time because offenders would now be required to serve a minimum of 75 percent of their sentence, according to a document submitted to the State Budget Committee. That requirement means the department anticipates a need for greater capacity in medium and maximum security level facilities. Numbers presented to the budget committee show a growth in prison population from around 29,700 this year to more than 31,600 in 2019.

House Speaker Brian Bosma, an Indianapolis Republican, has said the state needs to come to a conclusion on projections, and that a nationally recognized expert noted different estimates than the Department of Correction.

“We’re not going to provide for greatly-enhanced community corrections and constructing another prison because we are doing greatly-enhanced community corrections. In part, because it’s the right thing to do, but in part, to avoid building another prison,” Bosma said.