Marion County Sheriff Kerry Forestal’s Response on Overcrowded Jail
MARION COUNTY, Ind. — Marion County Sheriff Kerry Forestal wants to set the record straight: there is a major difference between how many beds a jail has and how many people it can actually hold safely.
While the Adult Detention Center (ADC) technically has 2,985 beds, the facility was never intended to be packed to the rafters, according to Forestal. To keep the gears turning, for maintenance, mental health needs, and the complex puzzle of inmate classification, the operational limit is strictly set at 80%, or roughly 2,400 beds. This isn’t a new number or a personal preference; it’s exactly what the City-County Council funded and what the building was designed to handle from day one.
Sheriff Forestal finds it frustrating when the Indianapolis President of the Fraternal Order of Police misrepresents these facts. As Forestal points out, the sheriff’s office didn’t build the jail; the city built it for them. As Forestal recalls, the talk wasn’t about how many beds would be built, but how many wouldn’t be built because of the city initiative to reform criminal justice. He emphasized that the 2,400-bed cap was a deliberate choice by the city. While there is physical space left at the Community Justice Campus for another 1,000 beds down the road, those simply do not exist today.
Forestal says that Snyder claims there are plenty of beds available, and Forestal says that’s not true and that one can’t just throw people into any open spot. Men and women must be separated, adults cannot be with people under the age of 18, and co-defendants have to be kept apart to protect the integrity of their cases. Even if a women’s unit has empty beds, you can’t just fill them with men just because the facility is crowded elsewhere.
Forestal argues that critics who speak from the sidelines, like Snyder, aren’t subject matter experts on these intricate daily operations. Instead of lobbing “rocks at Indianapolis” from the comfort of a neighboring county, Forestal suggests that the focus should be solving the city’s actual crisis: the massive shortage of police officers on the streets. He’s calling for an end to the rhetoric and a commitment to fixing the system based on the facts.
