By the numbers, the growth in the Marion County Sheriff's Office budget is indefensible. Prior to the merger of the policing duties of the Sheriff's into IMPD, as shown in the table from the latest edition of the IBJ, the budget was $110 million. It dropped $26 million, or about 24%, to $84 million in 2007 following the merger. It's been growing dramatically over the past several years and is expected to be $111.5 million, about 33% above its level the first year following the merger, averaging annual increases of about 5.5%. Layton wants to increase his budget next year to $119 million, an increase of 6.7%. Mayor Ballard's budget for 2014 would give him $108 million. If money is not restored to his budget, Sheriff Layton tell the IBJ that he plans to stop transporting IMPD arrestees to jail and pull deputies who guard arrestees and inmates being treated at Wishard Hospital. Sheriff Layton says that neither of those duties are mandated to be performed by his office. Despite the merger of the law enforcement duties into IMPD, the Sheriff's office still employs 666 deputies. Layton has a friend in City-County Councilor Mary Moriarty-Adams, who chairs the Public Safety Committee. She says she intends to restore as much of the funding as possible. Her husband works for the sheriff's office, which should disqualify her from participating in those budget discussions.
Good. Almost nobody is arrested for, or jailed for, a Real Crime. Almost nothing cops do is directed to stopping or investigating Real Crimes. All the cops concern themselves with are drugs, traffic, child support, probation violations, and other harassments of those who have wandered across a purely administrative line.
ReplyDeleteI welcome a complete stoppage of the current system so people can realize just how crime is unrelated to policing and jailing.
Let the state have the money to arrest and jail only a few, so we can see what is truly important to them.
The police have become an army unto themselves, and their sole mission is keeping their ranks housed and fed.
This is only the tip of the iceberg. If the arrests were looked at it would be noted that the Sheriff's Deputies arrest mostly for smaller non-felony crimes, making the broke criminal justice system more jammed than it needs to be. Heck his Deputies according to state law are not even qualified to make most arrest that they do.
ReplyDeleteHis deputies all seem to have the newest and sportiest police cars on the road.
ReplyDeleteAgain how many times must I suggest this,take some of the tax revenue the blue jackets are gonna get from the casino revenue tax. We must have our safety forces which I appreciate and of course we need our blue jackets (excuse me I must throw-up) the arena district did not want the casino to dirty up their area.... but it will take their money and lead to bad credit check advances. Excuse me again... you know what I have to do.
ReplyDeleteThe same sporty police cars that he leases, but according to state law he cannot enter into a contract to lease. Only the "funding body" can do that. But of course no one on the CCC is going to bring that up.
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