LAKE COUNTY MUST BE FREED FROM JAIL CROWDING PROBLEM

The issue: Jail crowding

Our opinion: Innovative ways to reduce the Lake County Jail
population -- electronic monitoring, making it easier to post bond,
etc. -- are needed to ease crowding.

"If you build it, they will come" seems to apply to jails as well as
baseball diamonds in cornfields.

In just four years, the Lake County Jail's population has almost
doubled. Last year, bookings at the jail increased 28 percent. That's
after spending $30 million in 2001 to expand the jail.

It's not a problem unique to Lake County. In 2004, just two years
after Porter County's new jail opened, overcrowding became an issue again.

Porter County built its jail larger than immediately necessary,
figuring the third pod likely would be needed in the distant future.
But opening it would mean adding staff to operate it.

Lake County, with a capacity of 1,040 and an inmate population
Thursday of 1,065, doesn't have that option.

And that's not counting the arrest warrants for more than 15,000
people in Lake County.

Simply stacking inmates in cells like kindling isn't an option. Many
of the inmates are awaiting trial and thus are legally presumed
innocent. Besides, overcrowding can lead to costly lawsuits against the county.

Complicating it even more is that men and women can't be put in the
same cell. Nor can adults and juveniles, nor felons and misdemeanants.

So Lake County Sheriff Rogelio "Roy" Dominguez commissioned a Crowe
Chizek and Co. study on options for the jail. It offers good advice.

Innovative ways to reduce the Lake County Jail population --
electronic monitoring, making it easier to post bond, etc. -- are
needed to ease crowding.

One suggestion, electronic monitoring, could work not just for the
offender, tracking him with a global positioning system, but also for
the victim. Some systems allow the victim to wear a monitor that
would give a proximity warning.

Systems like these can be expensive, but inmates could be made to pay the cost.

Another suggestion is to make it easier to post bond for certain
crimes. Setting lower bail amounts and longer hours for bail hearings
would help.

Of course, the purpose of posting bail -- to provide a strong reason
for the accused person to show up in court -- must not be defeated if
bail amounts are reduced too much.

Sending some of the county's convicted offenders to short-term to
facilities outside the county is also an option, too, though an
expensive solution.

But ignoring the problem isn't an option.

And as experience has shown, expanding or replacing the jail is not
only costly but also merely a temporary solution.