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Baugh talks county jail overcrowding at LWV event
Already dealing with a litany of funding questions, senior Putnam County officials can soon add another to their list.
Grappling for months or even years with issues such as building a new courthouse annex, fixing dozens of aging bridges and compensating underpaid employees, the Putnam County Council will soon hear from Sheriff Jerrod Baugh on finding solutions to overcrowding at the Putnam County Jail.
Openly sharing about a number of matters Tuesday evening during a League of Women Voters Community Conversation event, no topic was more central to Baugh’s message than the jail.
“We’re about to bring something to the county council,” Baugh said.
While the sheriff never expressly said a new jail was his aim, he clearly wants a discussion about not only increased capacity but maintenance needs of a jail that is now nearly 30 years old.
Sharing the same data he presented to members of the council and commissioners earlier this year, Baugh noted that in 2023, his first year in office, the jail was over its capacity of 146 inmates on four separate occasions.
Furthermore, the average daily inmate population was 130, problematic in that anything over 85 percent (124 inmates) is considered overcrowded by the Department of Correction. He told the Banner Graphic that overcrowded jails also come under greater scrutiny by the American Civil Liberties Union.
On those four occasions that the jail went over capacity, Baugh said the Sheriff’s Office had to approach the county judges about reducing the sentences of certain offenders. The sheriff assured those in attendance that these were not violent offenders, but often those on drug offenses who had served almost their entire sentence.
“We would never, ever take somebody that has a victim and let them out,” Baugh said.
This, however, got to what Baugh sees as another problem locally, one that cannot necessarily be addressed by county officials — the lack of inpatient recovery facilities.
While a number of successful recovery programs exist locally, the jail is the only place that gets people off the streets and away from the drugs, most commonly methamphetamine, that plague them. He said a jail is not the ideal place to dry out, citing as one example the cost of outfitting an inmate as more than $100. At a devoted recovery facility, patients could simply wear the jeans and T-shirts in which they arrived.
“I wish we had a stick and mortar place,” Baugh said.
And none of this touches on the difference in programming, in which a recovery facility can focus simply on recovery.
“I don’t want my jailers to be counselors,” Baugh said. “I want counselors to be counselors.”
To this end, he has partnered with Recovery Raw, the local recovery program that has found great success, to bring peer recovery into the jail.
Baugh also outlined a long list of repairs made at the jail in 2023, most notably a walk-in cooler that came at a cost of $83,000.
None of this is to say that the Putnam County Jail is a bad facility. The sheriff also noted that in the most recent jail inspection, the jail was cited for just two shortcomings — no indoor recreation space and not enough storage space.
While the jail had indoor rec when it was completed in 1995, at some point that was turned into additional dorm space. The storage, meanwhile, is being addressed.
“I’m really pleased with the people who came before me,” Baugh said. “Our jail inspector, who’s been doing this for 30 years, said it’s one of the cleanest jails he has seen.”
All of this adds up to more difficult conversations with the county council.
“I’m not going to raise your taxes — that’s not my job,” Baugh said. “I’m a servant of the courts and the keeper of the jail.”
On the whole, Baugh was positive about his experience as sheriff. He noted that in 1974, his father Jim Baugh was elected sheriff and the family moved into the old jail at 123 W. Washington St., Greencastle, where they remained for eight years.
“I watched my father do a job that he loved,” Baugh said.
In that jail, capacity was around 30 inmates, and Baugh’s mother Lauralee prepared all the meals herself.
While those aspects have changed, the current Sheriff Baugh said people are still the same after 50 years.
“It’s not that different,” Baugh said. “It’s the best job I ever had. I’ve wanted to do it since I was a kid.”
He also noted not having to fix problems like some new sheriffs have to do upon getting into office.
Addressing the job of his merit deputies, Baugh said the subject he hears more than any other is school bus stop arm violations.
To this end, the Putnam County Sheriff’s Office applied for and received a grant from the Indiana Criminal Justice Institute for stop arm enforcement. With Sgt. Robert Soilleux leading the effort, deputies have written 98 tickets.
“It’s about paying attention to what you’re doing when you’re driving,” Baugh said.
Baugh also used the term transparency several times throughout the night, a theme made obvious in his candor about jail needs.
To this end, the Sheriff’s Office has begun phasing in the use of body cameras for road officers and jail officers. The idea is to be up front about what goes on in interactions between officers and citizens, not only to protect the department but also to make improvements where needed.
“We get to use these body cameras to see where our deficiencies are,” Baugh said.
On the transparency front, Baugh also briefly discussed the new Putnam County Sheriff’s Office emergency app, which has a goal of keeping the public informed about road closures and other traffic concerns as well as sheriff sales, sex offender and most wanted lists, employment and inmate information.
The program concluded with comments from Cpl. Scott Ducker, who in addition to being a road deputy, serves as the public information officer. In this capacity, he runs the department’s popular Facebook page, which currently has 26,000 followers.
“My friends come up to me and say, ‘Who does your Facebook?’” Baugh said with a laugh.
That would be Ducker, who began building the account not long after he joined the department about eight years ago.
“If you had told me 10-15 years ago that I’d be doing social media, I’d have said you were crazy,” Ducker said.
Yet Ducker began building a following quickly through a trial-and-error process.
“We found out real quick how popular it was,” Ducker said.
Ducker has built a following through a combination of humor and serious information.
“We like to be funny, but my goal is to bring the serious message,” Ducker said.
Asked what the most popular post has been, Ducker recalled an instance when K9 Officer Brody tore up his bunny chew toys in the hallway. Ducker and others ended up “investigating” the incident as a “bunnycide,” posting a blurry image of Brody as well as a picture of Ducker photographing the taped-off “crime scene.”
For Baugh, instances like this are simply another piece of proof that while the specifics may have changed, law enforcement officers aren’t that much different from when he was a kid.
“I see things like what Cpl. Ducker does as the silly things we used to do in law enforcement,” Baugh said.
The sheriff believes showing that kind of humanity is working.
“We have the trust of Putnam County,” Baugh said. “The people of Putnam County like their deputies, and we want to keep it that way.”