REMINDED OF NEED FOR LOCKUP ACTION

Our position: Another tragic episode points to the need for a broad
approach to jail and lockup problems.

The issue of overcrowding in the Marion County jail system is in the news
again. As usual, the news is sensational and ugly.

A convicted felon released from the county lockup to alleviate its gross
population excess is accused by police of fatally shooting another man nine
days after he hit the street.

Jermaine Cole may or may not have killed 20-year-old Kevin Miller, but
police say they have reason to suspect he did. And the judge who freed him
should have suspected he might be prone to violence.

Superior Court Judge William Young concedes he was mistaken to release
Cole, 25, who was awaiting trial on a series of charges, including
possession of cocaine with a firearm. But the judge, confronting a lockup
that is 100 inmates over its legal capacity of 297, a figure raised
recently from 213, felt a need to get rid of somebody and deemed Cole less
dangerous than the rest of the pool at the time.

The ranking can be debated. But the need for this and similar dire
decisions that judges must make daily stems from a bigger problem, one that
calls for bigger thinking.

In a system that sees two dozen inmate-on-inmate assaults per month and
fails to provide enough beds or decent food and sanitation, overcrowding
requires a systemic solution. If common sense didn't say so, a federal
court order does.

The Sheriff's Department, in consultation with penal experts, judges,
prosecutors and public defenders, has come up with a solution -- a $4.7
million, high-tech intake center that would enable people arrested for
minor offenses to resolve their cases right away or at least enter pleas
and make bail without spending days or weeks swelling the crowd.

So far, a money-strapped and tax-leery City-County Council hasn't said yea
or nay to the proposal. In the meantime, the council has had to appropriate
$1 million as a Band-Aid measure to relieve the overcrowding. The new
intake center, its proponents say, would save $2 million a year within
three years of its opening.

Is streamlined intake the savior of a clogged criminal justice system?
Hardly. But it would be money better spent than much of what we're pouring
into a dysfunctional warehousing operation. How much bad news will it take
to break that news to us?