Marshall County Sheriff Matt Hassle told members of the County Council there were 243 inmates in the county jail Monday morning.
Jail overcrowding is becoming an issue and the sheriff said he has been in contact with a few of the surrounding county jails to see if there is interest in housing our over population. Hassel said Elkhart County has beds available but they are short 17 staff members so they can’t take inmates at this time. Fulton County is full and shipping their extras to Miami County while both Starke County and Kosciusko County are almost at capacity. Saint Joseph County has an 800 bed facility with only 642 inmates but they too are experiencing staffing issues.
The sheriff is working to get memorandum of understandings with several counties so when we have an overcrowding issue he could have an alternate location to send the inmates to.
The daily average jail population for January was 219 and in February it was 232.
Councilwoman Penny Lukenbill asked how he would suggest funding the additional housing cost for inmates that are transferred to another jail and the sheriff said his recommendation would be to put a line item in the jail’s Local Income Tax fund for prisoner housing or costs and fund it using the jails special income tax.
Councilman jack Roose asked if inmates are still spending an extended period of time in the jail.
The Sheriff said it takes time to work through the court process. He gave an example of a guy who was arrested in December of 2017 and just two weeks ago took a plea agreement one day before his trail was scheduled. Now that same guy is sitting in the jail waiting for his sentencing. Sheriff Hassle went on to say, “Our problem is pretrial and more people with a high bond that they can’t afford so they are going to sit there until they either go to trail or take a plea bargain.”
Sheriff Hassle said Meth is hurting the county really bad right now.
