Johnson County Jail bookings, population down dramatically

IOWA CITY - Bookings at the Johnson County Jail, as well as daily jail population, have decreased steadily over the past two years.

According to the Johnson County Sheriff's Office Annual Report release Monday, bookings at the jail fell from 6,972 in 2012 to 5,940 in 2014. During that same period, the average daily jail population went from 145.1 to 123.4.

Sheriff Lonny Pulkrabek credits much of that decrease to the work of the county's jail alternatives coordinator, Jessica Peckover, and weekly meetings involving Peckover, a district judge, the county attorney's office, public defender's office and jail command staff looking at the jail population.

'They meet weekly and they go over the list of who is in jail and they look at who they can get out,” Pulkrabek said. 'That has had an enormous impact on our population. That has really been what's driving it.”

Peckover said the group meets every Monday. Together, they look at the jail population and determine who could be better served by substance abuse or mental health treatment. They also look for opportunities for inmates to make a plea and get released.

'Is there someone in there, if we just get the attorneys talking, can we get a plea agreement?” Peckover said. 'Having access to attorneys and judges every Monday, that speeds up our ability to get someone out.”

Added Pulkrabek, 'It doesn't hurt that you're seeing 400 to 500 less arrests coming to the jail.”

Where that decrease is coming from is a little harder to pinpoint, Pulkrabek said. While he can't speak for other law enforcement agencies in the county, Pulkrabek said he has instructed his deputies to charge someone carrying small amounts of marijuana with possession of paraphernalia rather than possession of a controlled substance, which would require being arrested and booked at the jail rather than being cited and released.

Pulkrabek also said that officers and deputies in the county are 'well-read, well-educated people” who are aware of the climate with respects to arrests and the criminal justice system locally and nationwide. During campaigns to get voter approval for bond referendums that would have funded a new justice center, opponents focused on arrests for minor offenses such as public intoxication, as well as the disproportionate number of minorities in jail.

'I think the officers are well aware of the environment out there and using a lot of scrutiny when they make a decision to arrest someone or not,” Pulkrabek said.

The lower jail population has translated to fewer inmates being housed outside of the overcrowded jail and a lower cost to the sheriff's office. According to the annual report, the cost of housing inmates outside the county in 2013 reached $998,837. In 2014, that amount fell to $916,682. The total overflow costs, which include housing, labor and mileage, was $1,012,601 in 2013, but decreased to $928,163 last year.