| Statistic |
Impact Point |
| |
|
| The longest time an inmate can be sentenced
to the Scott County Jail is one year. |
People don't stay in jail forever - and jail sentences
are much shorter than prison sentences. With very few
exceptions, everyone in the Scott County Jail will be
back in Scott County very quickly. Jails are very different
from prisons.
|
| |
|
| The number of people booked at the Scott
County Jail more than doubled from 1994 to 2000. |
In 2002, there were about 7,500 jail bookings - about
one every hour and 10 minutes. As a central booking agency
for all law enforcement agencies in Scott County, the
jail has to handle a large number of people. Jail bookings
are not rare events. There are a lot of people who pass
through the Scott County Jail. |
| |
|
| Half of jail inmates are 30 years old
or older. |
People often think that only young men are at risk of
being arrested. Mandatory sentencing has changed all that.
As the population of the county and nation has gotten
older, the jail population has aged also. People who think
that the requirements for jail space will go down just
because the population of the County and nation is aging
have failed to consider the impact of legislative and
social change. |
| |
|
| Women account for 20% of people booked. |
One of the fastest growing segments of jail and prison
populations is the female offender population. Leaving
aside the potential that some of this is caused by social
change, it's clear that mandatory sentencing plays a role
in this change. The problem for Scott County is that the
current facility does not provide adequate space for female
offenders. |
| |
|
| About 15% of people who are arrested
are released in 4 hours or less - and about 66% are released
in 48 hours. |
People think - intuitively, but incorrectly - that
when someone is arrested they will be gone for a long
time. For most people, that isn't true. People are back
in the community very quickly.
The "flip side" of this is that the 33% of
people who stay longer than 48 hours tend to stay in
jail for long periods of time. Only 5% of people who
are booked stay longer than 60 days - but this group
of people use more than half of all the jail bed space
that is used. This is the population that the system
needs to do something about to keep on managing the
jail population.
|
| |
|
| In May of 2002, 232 people were in jail. |
The jail can only legally hold 208-212 inmates; the
difference in capacity comes from how the holding cells
in booking can be used.
Scott County has had to board more inmates out this
year - and given the number of serious felons in custody
now, there is little indication that this will stop
in the near future.
|
| |
|
| 81% were pretrial detainees |
Pretrial detainees have not been convicted of anything.
As a result, the idea that punishment is the main reason
why people go to jail isn't true in Scott County. Pretrial
detainees are held in jail if bond is not permitted (because
of the seriousness of their crime), because they do not
have the financial resources to make a cash or property
bond, or because they are considered too high a risk of
flight if released through pretrial release. |
| |
|
| 85% of people booked at the jail live
in Iowa; 77% live in Scott County. Scott and Rock Island
County account for 85% of all bookings. |
These are generally not strangers; the people in this
jail live in Scott County and the Quad Cities. When they
get released from jail, they are not going elsewhere -
they are generally going back to their homes. |
| |
|
| About 25% are unemployed at the time
they are arrested; about 15% are unskilled laborers. |
This population has no way of sustaining itself when
released without relying on either friends, family, social
service agencies - or resuming a criminal lifestyle. |
| |
|
| The average number of times that a person
was booked into the jail in 2000 was 1.33. 60% indicated
that they had been booked at this jail before. |
Right now, the Scott County Jail is operating something
like a revolving door. These statistics are measures of
recidivism - about one-third of all people arrested are
back in jail within the year - and 60% of all people had
been in this jail previously. More than two-thirds of
those who said they had been in jail before had been jail
in the last two years. This would suggest that recidivism
is high at the Scott County Jail. And this is only the
Scott County Jail - not all jails. |
| |
|
| About 25% of people who were booked at
the jail were charged with felonies; the rest were charged
with misdemeanor offenses. |
Misdemeanor offenses result in short sentences. While
people charged with aggravated and serious misdemeanors
can be sent to prison, their sentences are short - two
years or less. With good time, they can often be back
in the community in less than a year. |
| |
|
| The most common reason why people are
arrested and booked at the jail is because they have failed
to appear in court - most often they were on unsupervised
probation. |
While the initial charge may not have been a particularly
serious offense, in the long-term, these people have a
significant impact because they use a disproportionate
amount of law enforcement, prosecution, judicial and jail
resources. They also typically do not pay back the community
for the harm that they have done. |
| |
|
| 46% of all people booked are released
on bond. |
Release on bond is the most common way people get out
of jail. About half of the bond releases are as a result
of pretrial release. |
| |
|
| About 4% of people booked are sent to prison. |
The perception that everyone booked at the jail ends
up going to prison is not accurate; the justice system
deals with most people who are booked at the jail through
a wide variety of sanctions. |
