County jails fear onslaught of addicts, mentally ill from prisons

Franklin County Sheriff Ken Murphy and other sheriffs around the state see a wave of people coming their way.

Many of them may be drug addicts. Some will be thieves. Others will be like a Franklin County woman who believes John Kennedy is her father and Dick Cheney fathered her child, Murphy said. Or like the man Murphy knows who draws on the walls of his padded cell — with feces. Or the one who said God told him to preach door to door in the middle of winter — naked.

With the passage of sentencing reforms last year, one study estimates that more than 14,000 low-level offenders, some with serious addictions and mental illnesses, will no longer be kept in prison. They will be diverted to county jails and community corrections programs that Murphy and others say are ill-equipped to handle the onslaught.

Many such offenders need expensive mental health care — some requiring hundreds of dollars a month in medication.

"These are people with real problems that need treatment," Murphy said. "We need a secure facility or work release or whatever where we can send these folks ... where they can receive treatment, and when they're released, somebody follows up with them."

Sheriffs across the state say jails are not designed for all that. Jails are meant to hold people awaiting trial, not to house and rehabilitate those who have been convicted. Many do not have mental health services. Some counties also lack money to expand treatment programs or to launch community corrections programs that provide alternatives to jail, such as housing and GPS monitoring.

That, Murphy said, makes this legislative session critical for public safety.

The success of the criminal code reform under House Enrolled Act 1006, which took effect in July, hinges largely on providing funds for county programs. Without them, Murphy and others say, people with mental illness and substance abuse problems have a higher risk of failing and re-offending.

If that happens, the benefits of the reforms could be compromised. HEA 1006, after all, was not designed only to release low-level offenders to the counties. It was billed as a get-tough measure that greatly enhances sentencing requirements for the most violent and hardened criminals, keeping them in prison longer.

Some think help may be on the way. Larry Landis, executive director of the Indiana Public Defender Council, said there's a consensus among legislators that more funding for local services is necessary.

The harder questions are: How much more money? And where will it come from?

An independent study by Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit American Institutes for Research estimates that about $10.5 million in initial funding is needed. And one of the key players in the criminal code reform thinks much more will be needed.

Rep. Greg Steuerwald, R-Avon, introduced a bill this legislative session that calls for $50 million in annual funding for community corrections programs. Steuerwald said House Bill 1006 also would pay for probation, substance abuse treatment, mental health programs and evidence-based practices. Examples include alternative courts for drug addicts, veterans and mental health patients, and courts that emphasize treatment and supervision rather than incarceration.

"What we can't do," Landis said, "is just throw money at it and say, 'Here, counties, here's the money. You figure it out.' "

Without state investment in treatment facilities, Landis said, counties could focus on jail capacity, simply building more jails and hiring more probation and community corrections officers.

"You've got to have places for mentally ill people to live. If they're living on the street, they're going to be in jail," Landis said. "If we don't deal with that and the counties cannot send them to the Department of Correction, that means they're going to be in the counties with the same addiction, the same mental illness, so we have to address that issue."

Overcrowding concerns run high

How the reform will play out is still open for debate.

Rep. Jud McMillin, one of the key players in the criminal code reform, said it will solve the problem of prison overcrowding, eliminate the need to build another prison and reduce recidivism through local treatment programs and services for nonviolent and low-risk offenders.

Legislators have pledged that funding for services for people with mental illness and substance abuse problems will be among their top priorities this year.

"Those are the kinds of services that can be utilized to reduce prison population, reduce jail population, increase probability to remain in the workforce and retain productive members of the society," said McMillin, R-Brookville, who represents Franklin County. "It's very important that we get this right."

But many, including Murphy, fear the new law will place a financial strain on jails and community corrections. According to the American Institutes for Research study, half of the jails in the state are understaffed. About a third are overcrowded. Only a quarter have the capacity to absorb the potential impact of the sentencing reform. Of the 10 most populous counties, the study expects only one will not face overcrowding problems.

Sheriffs are expecting a 20 percent increase in jail population.

In Franklin County, that amounts to an additional 140 inmates every year. Murphy said it's a significant jump, especially for an often-overcrowded and understaffed jail in a financially strapped county. It has no psychiatrists and inpatient services for inmates with drug and mental health problems. Franklin also is one of five counties in Indiana that do not have a community corrections program.

In the Marion County Jail, only about 70 inmates are doing time. The other 2,100 are awaiting trial. Lt. Col. Louis Dezelan of the Marion County Sheriff's Office said inmate population is kept just under the limit, and a 20 percent increase would be detrimental.

"We've made a life of making sure this jail is as humane as possible and as safe as possible for both deputies and inmates. We see huge problems on the horizon," Marion County Sheriff John Layton said. "We're not a hundred percent positive of what we can do about this with the facility that we're in at this particular time."

Layton and others said the state is turning jails into correctional facilities — something jails aren't designed for.

"County jails are totally based on the idea in our society that you are innocent until proven guilty," said Howard County Sheriff Steve Rogers. "(HEA) 1006 wants us to hold folks after they've been convicted. Then they won't be pretrial detainees."

Rogers said HEA 1006 will put a strain on his jail's mental health resources.

"If we can reduce the amount of people that have these mental health issues in our jail," Rogers said, "I think we can handle what 1006 will bring us."

Jails also lack educational programs and vocational training offered in the DOC.

"We're not here to rehabilitate," said Capt. Harold Vincent, commander at the Howard County Jail. "That doesn't happen in the jail setting."

Counties see rising costs

Inmates with mental illnesses and substance abuse problems are expensive to incarcerate because of their medical and psychiatric needs.

In Marion County, for instance, about 30 percent of inmates are mentally ill, and they take up roughly $7.7 million of the sheriff's budget every year, Layton said. Eighty-five percent have substance abuse problems.

Medication for the mentally ill costs about $800 to $1,500 per dose per person, said Dr. Erika Cornett, medical director for the behavioral health division of Community Howard Regional Health. Some need an injection once a month, while others need two. That means one mentally ill inmate can cost a jail up to $3,000 a month in medication alone.

The Howard County Jail works closely with Cornett's department in treating mentally ill inmates. She said she expects more referrals for inpatient care from the jail.

"(That) would be additional cost on the county to provide for that care," she said.

Molly Wright foresees the same problems. As the mental health attorney for the Marion County public defender's office, she deals with defendants with chronic mental illnesses. She said jails need more resources to be able to screen people for mental illness and keep them out of jail by diverting them to local programs.

Larger counties, such as Marion and Allen, already have that ability through mental health courts. Marion County started a mental health court in preparation for HEA 1006. Smaller counties, such as Franklin and Howard, however, have no such resources.

'More difficult situation'

Staying out of jail, however, can be expensive.

People who serve time in the counties have to pay certain fees that they don't pay in prison. Indiana law, for instance, requires convicted felons on probation to pay up to $100 in initial fees, $100 in administrative fees and up to $30 for every month they stay on probation. That's on top of payments to get into mental health or substance abuse programs.

That's a problem, said Rhiannon Edwards, executive director of Public Advocates in Community Re-Entry or PACE, a nonprofit organization that provides services to people with felony convictions. Most low-level offenders convicted of crimes such as theft and drug possession are addicts, she said. Many are indigent and lack insurance.

"It puts them in an even more difficult situation," Edwards said. "If we don't provide services for drug addiction, they'll keep on committing crimes. We're not helping. If we want them to not be hardened criminals, to not have more victims, we have to find ways to get to the root cause of their issue."

Christine Kerl, Marion County's chief probation officer, said it's hard to forecast how many more clients her department will have. The agency normally has one probation officer for every 100 clients. So an additional 2,000 offenders, for instance, would require 20 more officers.

Kerl said services for what's expected to be a higher number of offenders in the counties will have to be subsidized. Her department does not cover those expenses.

"I don't think anybody is saying we could go on with existing resources," said Marion County Deputy Prosecutor Andrew Fogle, chairman of the Marion County Community Corrections Advisory Board. "Even if we maximize existing resources, that's going to be ineffective if we get swamped with a whole bunch of new people."

'A good investment'

Will the political atmosphere be agreeable to spending more money on programs and services that help criminals?

Some hope so.

"A lot of these people do have mental illness through no fault of their own," said Steve McCaffrey, president and CEO of Mental Health America of Indiana. "(Others) have gotten themselves in a situation where they have abused drugs to the point that it has become an addiction. The most important thing in their life is getting the drug that they need."

Gov. Mike Pence's budget proposal includes charter school expansion and millions of dollars for education. It also calls for $43 million to support DOC operations and staffing over two years and $51 million in funding for construction of additional cell houses at Miami and Wabash Valley correctional facilities.

Landis said local funding for counties was not among Pence's budget priorities and might take a back seat to the prison funding.

But McMillin thinks local funding is a priority at the Statehouse. He said counties also need to be proactive in figuring out what services they already have and what they need.

Some funding for the counties — up to $11 million in grants — will be available if the DOC sees some operational savings as a result of the reform. Without savings, however, there won't be any grants.

When asked whether the DOC will see savings and if so, how much, spokesman Doug Garrison said, "We don't have an answer to that yet."

Steuerwald said legislators are in the process of collecting data from the DOC to see whether the number of prisoners it's taking has decreased.

McMillin said he's confident there will be savings. HEA 1006 requires the DOC to determine by March 1 how much savings it will realize as a result of the criminal code reform.

Some, however, think there will be political resistance. Investing in other areas, such as education, is more popular, Landis said. Greater support. More political mileage.

But spending money to help low-level offenders, he said, is "a good investment because the return to the law-abiding citizen is really pretty great."

"We all want to lower crime. The issue is how we get there," Landis said. "We know what works."

Call Star reporter Kristine Guerra at (317) 444-6209. Follow her on Twitter:@kristine_guerra.