Danger - Getting Tough on Crime

From The Indianapolis Star: Bigger jails stand as monuments to Indiana's failures as incarceration rate keeps climbing.

The General Assembly dominated by the Republicans demonstrates that party's fetish of punishment for the sake of punishment.

Since 2000, the state’s jail population has grown by 60%, according to 2019 federal data — more than five times the state’s overall population growth. But it's not like Indiana has been overrun by hardened criminals.

Indiana's jails are largely filled with people arrested on relatively minor charges and often related to drugs, mental illness, the inability to afford bail or a failure to follow rules of probation. They are complicated, sometimes overlapping issues, exacerbated by a drastic shortage of state psychiatric hospital beds and the transfer of thousands of state prisoners into already crowded local jails since 2014.

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 But there are solutions: More community mental health funding. The reduction or elimination of cash bail. Expanded access to drug treatment. A less punitive approach to non-violent crimes and status violations, such as a missed court hearing or failed drug test. 

They all come with a steep price. But none may be as high — or as misguided — as maintaining the status quo.

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 "After the closure of state psychiatric hospitals, jails have become the state's de facto mental health institutions. That means sheriffs — who say that 80% of their jail populations have a substance use or other mental health issue — are now serving as mental health providers. Yet they say they are severely under-equipped and undertrained for this task.

Mental health experts and providers who work in Indiana jails suggested that if more addicts and mental illness patients were moved out of jails and into work release facilities, recovery centers and psychiatric hospitals, the jail overcrowding crisis could be mitigated, if not solved.

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Tippecanoe County Sheriff Robert Goldsmith put it in perspective: "If you build a bigger jail, you fill it."

Unlike jails, community corrections programs pay for themselves, said Jason Huber, who runs the county's community corrections program. As much as 73% of its operating budget comes from participants. Some work by day and return to the work release center by night; others serve home detention or check in each day. Those with jobs pay a daily fee that is equal to one hour’s wage plus a dollar.

The Republicans are the party of illusions, not practical solutions. 

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