'Paralyzed': ACLU lawyer Falk tells Monroe County jail committee 15 years is long enough

The class-action lawsuit ACLU of Indiana lawyer Ken Falk filed in 2008 put local elected officials on notice: the Monroe County Jail was overcrowded, unsafe and must be replaced.

County officials agreed. Public forums, meetings, studies, budgets and visits to new jails followed. An 85-acre site on county-owned land off South Rogers Street was earmarked.

An April 11, 2008, headline in The Herald-Times said: "Firm hired to make financial plans for new county jail."

Yet nothing has actually happened.

This week, 15 years later, Falk spoke to current county officials on the same topic, reminding them of their lack of progress. He said no one should be surprised about the dire need for a new and better jail.

"Monroe County knew it in 2008," he said.

"You have a jail which, I think, is problematic and it needs to be replaced," he told members of the county Community Justice Response Committee Monday. "You guys are living on the edge here. The jail is past its effective life."

Debating the 'perfect' solution

The committee of local criminal justice workers and elected officials has been meeting more than two and a half years, tasked with investigating and recommending the best path forward.

To date, there's been a lot of discussion, a fair amount of contention, not much agreement and no action.

Falk said it appears the well-intentioned committee members are mired in place as they debate what the "perfect" option is, as time moves on and unconstitutional conditions at the jail languish.

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"It's time. It really is time." He said he was tempted last year to not extend an agreed settlement of the 2008 lawsuit that requires the county to cap the number of inmates at 278 or face further ACLU legal action.

He told the committee that continuous talk about doing what's necessary while trying to please everyone, "has hindered your ability to solve this problem."

Falk, like he did 15 years ago, emphasized that jail inmates and staff deserve a decent and safe facility, and the county is obigated to provide it.

"You need a new jail. Everyone knows that. The expectation of everyone in 2009 was there would be a new jail," he said. "You've been given all the advice you need, and it's frustrating to me to see all you good people, trying to do the right thing, paralyzed."

'Something bad's going to happen'

He said if inmate and staff concerns aren't reason enough to convince officials to get moving on the project, the threat of further litigation might be. "Something bad's going to happen. You guys are going to get sued."

Falk said Monroe County is a prime target for an inmate lawsuit since officials are well aware of ongoing safety issues at the jail. They are documented in the 2008 lawsuit and also in a 2021 criminal justice consultant's report detailing abysmal conditions at the 37-year-old facility.

"County officials are burdened with a correctional facility that should be considered high risk for liability due to the real and potential risk of harm to inmates, staff and the public,” the study says.

"The jail facility is incapable of consistently ensuring and sustaining constitutional levels of inmate care and custody. The facility is ill designed to accommodate the array of health care treatment services required to meet constitutional levels of care or programs to prepare inmates for successful community reentry."

The issue of whether and when to build a jail to replace the one inside the Zietlow Justice Center in downtown Bloomington goes back a decade before the 2008 lawsuit.

In the summer of 1998, Herald-Times reporter Kurt Van Der Dussen joined commissioner Norm Anderson, county councilman John Lee Smith, Judge Marc Kellams, sheriff's department Sgt. Steve Chambers and local contractor Harold Weddle on a flight to Grand Rapids, Michigan, to tour a pod-system jail they they hoped to emulate.

Bad conditions and design flaws at the current jail had just come to light; nothing ever happened toward the construction of a jail. Five of the six men on that Grand Rapids trip have since died.

County council member Jennifer Crossley sits on the justice response committee. She asked Falk why Monroe County officials have been so slow to respond to the call and need for a modern jail.

Complacency, he responded. Falk said county officials grew content with the status quo and the annual extension of the lawsuit settlement that holds the ACLU at bay if the jail keeps inmate numbers in line.

"People have become comfortable," he said.

Contact H-T reporter Laura Lane at llane@heraldt.com or 812-318-5967.

This article originally appeared on The Herald-Times: Monroe County, Indiana has stalled on new jail for more than 15 years