Monitors No Substitute For Jail: Sheriff
A political fight that erupted last week at Cincinnati City Council over buying more ankle bracelets to monitor low-level criminal offenders obscured a basic truth, according to the Hamilton County OH sheriff. Even if the city and the county purchase electronic monitoring units by the hundreds, it’s only a temporary fix. Report from the Cincinnati Enquirer.
“No amount of EMU’s can replace the 800-bed jail we had to close,” Sheriff Simon Leis Jr. said. The bracelets, he said, relieve just some of the problems … Budget woes forced the sheriff to close the 800-bed Queensgate jail last year, reducing the jail system’s capacity by a third …
The fight began after some Cincinnati council members wanted to use part of $1.2 million in stimulus money given to the city by the U.S. Department of Justice to lease 75 electronic monitoring units, a tool that allows a suspect or convict to be monitored while living at home. But Mayor Mark Mallory sent that proposal to committee, meaning it will likely die without a hearing. Those new units would have come on top of 75 electronic monitoring units the county plans to lease with its own $1.2 million in stimulus dollars. Those would be on top of the 440 units already in use.
In Leis’ view, 75 or even 150 units won’t have a major impact. “It is just a temporary stop-gap,” he said. “There’s just no way this criminal justice problem can be solved without jail beds.”
What pushed the issue out front last week was the arrest of Miciah Black, a 20-year-old who was repeatedly ordered jailed on minor offenses, but repeatedly released due to overcrowding. While out, he is accused of raping a teenager in Lytle Park in downtown Cincinnati. Since Jan. 1, the sheriff said he has had to release 8,571 prisoners, either immediately after arrest (the person is told to go to court), by telling people to come back and serve their sentence later, or by releasing them before their sentence is up.
Most counties [in Ohio] use at least a few electronic monitoring units. Warren County court officials say more than 600 offenders were supervised on electronic monitoring in 2008. Clermont County uses 10-20 units on any given day but hopes to use more in the future, officials there said. Butler County uses about 25 of the devices at a time … Hamilton County uses about 300 each day …
Last Tuesday, three judges went to council’s law committee meeting and begged for council’s help, saying closing Queensgate emboldened criminals who know unless their crime is serious there’s a good chance they’ll be released right after arrest and possibly not ever serve a sentence.Hamilton County Municipal Judge Bernie Bouchard, one of the three judges who testified before council, said the monitors are not the long-term solution, but they are the “best solution right now.”
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