No Room in Jail

[Motivator]

Has anyone else out there that has been told (not directly) to not arrest anyone unless they had warrants or committed a felonious act, because the jails were full?

[Niteshift]

We go through that from time to time. I ran into it more when I was in WA state, than down here.

Actually, what they do here is not tell us don't arrest, but just tell you that they'll be released on their own recognizance as soon as you get up to the jail, so you pretty much know not to even bother. Just write a notice to appear.

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Niteshift-
Perseverate In Pugna

[tcsd1236]

It's happened in our area sorta like that; jail was overcrowded, judges got pulled aside by the powers that be, and agreements were made to ROR all but the worst of the bunch.
The liberals make incarceration sound like a discriminatory thing; funny thing, I thought the accused was a criminal....no one MADE him commit the crime!
And I know some will say "but they're only ACCUSED , not convicted". Well, that might work the first time through, but most of our perps are life-long crooks..their time as a first time offender ended long ago. I say lock em up for years, and throw a rope over some of the worst and have a public hanging as an object lesson about how criminals should die.

[Don]

This has been going on for years, all over the country. The cops do their jobs and fill up the jails, then the ACLU and others do their jobs and get court orders to cut down on the overcrowding. Something, somewhere has to give, so new arrestees are released on their ORs when they should be held, and a lot of dirtbags are getting "early kicks" when they do not deserve it.

I

[GDenman]

Our county jail has a federally mandated limit of 111. Before the weekend the sheriff & jail administrator will go over who is in for what & will release, if necessary, down to 102-105 so that at least a half-dozen can be arrested over the weekend. If more than that are arrested, the sheriff gets a phone call & takes a jail roster home with him & he starts making the decision on who gets released early in order to take the new arrests in. Granted, we have a small jail. But about 10 years ago somebody went crying to one of those liberal federal judges about some of the prisoners having to sleep on pallets on the floor. I guess they didn't like being stepped over by the other prisoners when they got up to change channels on the TV. http://www.officer.com/ubb/smile.gif

When I was Shift Supervisor on Midnights about 6-7 years ago, a guy came to our back door & demanded to be let in. When I asked him what for, he said he had a warrant & wanted to turn himself in. Turned out his warrant was for Revocation of Probation & the jail was full. I told him just to contact his probation officer the next day. He got real upset & demanded he be arrested. I had to shut the door & walk away with him still beating on it wanting to be arrested. It's a sad state of affairs!

[cdawg16]

Our agency has turned away people on commitments in the past. As far as arrests go, even when our county jail is full, our sheriff has let us take the arrestee to another county/city jail. Fortunately since our new facility was built a couple years ago, we haven't had the "no vacancy" light on very much. I imagine that it's only a matter of time though. Seems like the bigger your jail is, the more arrests you make. Must be that "if you build it.....they will come" theory eh???? http://www.officer.com/ubb/smile.gif