Indianapolis officials on Monday unveiled their plans for spending $6.4 million in stimulus money earmarked for law enforcement activities, according to the Indianapolis Star.
About $2.7 million would be spent on improvements to the criminal justice system, including $1.3 million to upgrade the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department’s automated fingerprinting system. Another $1.5 million would go to employment and prisoner re-entry programs, including $904,000 to place 200 ex-convicts into temporary jobs at the Indianapolis Department of Public Works …
Marion County is proposing to spend $1.2 million on juvenile justice programs, including building two new juvenile reception centers to beef up the services and supervision for young offenders. The county plans to spend $580,000 on a nurse and substance abuse services for Community Corrections inmates; $118,000 on training programs for the Indianapolis Fire Department and Community Corrections staff; and $319,000 to contract with a grant manager.
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Board members who appointed Tom Marendt last month as director of Marion County IN Community Corrections say his management skills will be key for an agency in transition.
The appointee will have to work to regain the confidence of some justice system players who have criticized lax accountability in the agency that provides alternatives to prison and jail. He also will come aboard as agency officials look for ways to free up employees so they can work more closely with people assigned to the agency’s work-release, home-detention and monitoring programs … Marendt said the new job offered an opportunity “to contribute to the well-being of our city.”
He can learn the ins and outs of the justice system on the job, said Marion Superior Court Judge William Young, the advisory board’s chairman. But Marendt’s management skills, Young added, are more difficult to learn quickly. “Tom is, first and foremost, a very excellent administrator,” said Marion County Prosecutor Carl Brizzi … “Community corrections needs . . . someone who can provide oversight and accept personal responsibility for what happens there.” Brian Barton, who directed the agency for 11 years, left in June after months of public sparring with board members over proposed changes and his leadership.
Marendt said once his appointment is final, he will meet with each employee and review the agency’s budget and programs thoroughly. On the agency’s immediate horizon is a proposed settlement with the American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana over conditions at the Community Corrections Center, also known as the jail annex … Expected to be filed soon in U.S. District Court, the agreement would end the use of the minimum-security facility to house inmates by February. Board officials said during a recent meeting that a proposed renovation exceeding $1 million still wouldn’t have brought the aging building up to corrections standards. Only about two dozen inmates remain there, and Young said the Duvall Residential Center, a 350-bed work-release facility opened last year, has extra beds to pick up some slack. The Near-Eastside facility has prompted complaints from neighborhood groups about problems caused by its presence, but Young said agency officials are working to resolve them.
Board members said Marendt will take over amid pushes for several changes: Shifting caseworkers’ duties so they spend less time keeping tabs on fee payments and paperwork and more time performing individual assessments and helping people in their programs connect with jobs, training and treatment help. The board is considering hiring a contractor to take over monitoring and technical functions for the home-detention program. “Our goal at community corrections is for everybody to be reintegrated as successful members of society,” Young said. “It’s not going to be this shotgun approach we’ve taken in the past.”
More on this appointment at the Indianapolis Star.
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Productivity and public safety have been given a boost in the Marion County Jail in Indianapolis IN by the introduction of new telephone technology.
“Hello, this is Sheriff Frank J. Anderson and welcome to the Marion County Inmate Information System.” With this message, friends, family, attorneys and bondsmen calling into the Marion County Jail are welcomed to use a newly implemented self-service solution to quickly obtain information about inmate cases and facility policies. The service is available 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, and with a capacity of hundreds of simultaneous calls, it reduces the busy signals and extended holds common to larger U.S. jails during peak calling periods.
Automated Information Services (AIS) is a hosted Interactive Voice Response (IVR) application from Telerus and SECURUS Technologies that allows the public to call in 24/7 to obtain up to date inmate-specific information such as Bond Amounts, Charges, Court Dates and locations. AIS also provides general information on the 7 facilities housing inmates for Sheriff Anderson. The impact to the Marion County Jail’s operational efficiency was felt immediately. The average call volume dropped from an average of 158 calls per hour to a mere 30 calls per hour. With less time being spent on phone calls, the Jail will have more resources for improved constituent service as well as greater attention to facility security and the safety of the officers.
The use of Voice Over Internet Protocol (VoIP) and Speech Recognition in an (IVR) System allows callers to dial the same number that has always been used by the Marion County Jail, but now to interact directly with data from the Jail Inmate Management System database. While AIS automates over 75% of the calls into the Jail; the remaining calls are transferred to the Jail for personal assistance and handling. “We are pleased to now offer this service to the citizens of Marion County as well to the friends and families of our inmates. This eases the burden of our overworked staff, improves service and improves the security of our facility, all without increasing our funding requirements,” said Sheriff Anderson.
Source: press release
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Far fewer youths file into Marion County’s juvenile lockup each day, a key result of a reform effort that has reduced crowding and diverted thousands of children into programs outside the center’s walls.
Changes have come quickly. The county’s juvenile court judge and magistrates reject more delinquency cases submitted by prosecutors or schools. Some get resolved short of court by involving offenders’ families in the case. And a reception center screens youths more stringently, sending more lower-risk offenders home before trial instead of locking them up.
That might sound like a way to promote crime rather than stop it. But juvenile court Judge Marilyn Moores says data collected through the project have helped earn police support for the approach.”Kids who are low-level offenders need to be out in the community and stay connected with the community, because it positively affects them,” she said.
In Indianapolis, early data show stark changes taking hold without a surge in juvenile crime.
In 2004, the detention center held 171 detainees on an average day, far more than the 144 beds could accommodate. Earlier this year, the same measure was below 100. Officials have closed units to reduce capacity to 112. Detention admissions have fallen by more than half, to 2,214 last year.
A committee of court officials, experts and community leaders developed a way to screen kids who most need to be in custody. The goal is to allow detention only when an offender likely won’t show up for court or is a danger to the community. Alternatives include electronic monitoring, home detention and a curfew. The project has drawn in prosecutors, public defenders and other players in the system, spurring more changes.
There are a lot more details in the full article at The Indianapolis Star.
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A civil rights complaint and a lawsuit filed last Wednesday by inmates raise questions about medical care, safety and the grievance system at a privately run Marion County IN jail.
Jail II — touted by officials as one of the best jails in Indiana — opened in 1997 to relieve pressure on the Marion County Jail. But last week, an advocacy group that has collected written complaints from about a dozen inmates asked the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate the facility. And the class-action lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Indianapolis on behalf of five inmates, seeks a judge’s order to cancel the county’s contract with Corrections Corporation of America. The lawsuit and a letter sent to the Justice Department’s civil rights division outline claims that Jail II inmates have been denied medication, given incorrect dosages or given the wrong prescription drugs …
A spokeswoman for Jail II and an attorney for Sheriff Frank Anderson declined to address the allegations, but they pointed to several audits that make the facility the only local jail in the state accredited by the American Correctional Association. They said those standards — set for facility conditions and all aspects of its operation — exceed legal minimums.
Plenty more at the IndyStar.
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Unpaid bills and stolen equipment have put a serious crimp in offender monitoring activities in Marion County IN.
Marion County judges have been told to stop putting offenders into a community corrections alcohol-monitoring program, in part because more than 180 of the county’s leased monitoring devices are missing or damaged. Also a factor in halting the program: A vendor stopped supplying devices to the county community corrections agency because the agency hasn’t paid its bill for at least three months — a symptom of the county’s failure to collect fees from the most of the offenders who wore them last year. The uncollected 2007 fees and the cost of the damaged and lost equipment represent a $3.4 million loss for the community corrections agency … The agency also monitors about 250 home detainees with Global Positioning System devices. About 80 such devices are missing or damaged.
There is more on this story at The Indy Channel.
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The jail at Marion County IN is 57 officers short of what it needs. Enforced overtime to fill the gap has caused increased stress.
Sheriff Frank Anderson is ordering deputies to work overtime to pick up the slack … “We’ve actually had to discipline people who do not want to work,” said Kerry Forestal, Marion County sheriff’s chief deputy. “We are constantly recruiting to fill the openings.”
The Sheriff’s Department was given permission to hiure the additional officers, but recruiting is slow and compunded by a high turnover of existing officers.
High turnover among correctional officers is a symptom of the staffing problems. Despite a recent hike in starting salaries to about $30,000 a year, Forestal said deputies continue to bolt to higher-paying law enforcement jobs elsewhere.
A new class of 32 officer trainees is set to begin training in March. A look at how those 32 got there is illustrative of the problems:
The recruitment effort for those individuals began with the department first sending 3,000 letters to Indianapolis Fire Department and Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department applicants who were not accepted to those departments. Of those, 409 responded with interest in a position, and 126 of that group took a written test. The 110 who passed the written test then underwent interviews and agility tests, and 69 advanced. Then, 34 of the 69 passed a background test, a psychological test and a medical test. Of those, 32 accepted the job offers.
The Indianapolis Star has much more on the issue.
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