While national elections tend to inspire the most participation, local elections offer voters the greatest opportunity to have their voices heard. The Recorder spoke with four contenders for the office of Marion County Sheriff to learn their stances on key issues. Republican candidate Jim Grimes did not respond by press time.
About the Sheriff:
Typically an elected official, a sheriff is responsible for law enforcement on a county level and performs roles similar to a police chief in a municipal department.
Recorder: What are the biggest issues facing the sheriff’s department and what would you do to fill that need?
Benjamin: One of the biggest issues, for me, is participating in the reduction and prevention of violence. (The sheriff’s department) has a minimal role. If your philosophy is just, ‘I want to run a jail,’ than that’s what you’ll do. There is going to be a full audit on the sheriff’s department on where money has been spent. That’s a big issue because the deputies and civilian employees are paid 40 percent less than IMPD, which is driving morale down. They can’t sustain the manpower because (the employees) are getting paid so little. I also want to mention that the number one mental health facility in the state is the Marion County Jail, and those inmates are not receiving full services. As the new sheriff, I want to make sure that inmates with mental illnesses will be treated.
Durham: The jail overcrowding. We have 2,600 capacity on the inmates, but we still have inmates that compete for space at the jail. Also, the mentally ill that are in jail — are they getting the right resources made available to them, as far as counseling or medication or treatment?
Forestal: An upcoming thing that’s going to be huge is the creation of the $570 million criminal justice center. Having the administrative responsibility of doing that is important, and it will be one of our biggest challenges to open the new jail and continue to operate (the old jail) simultaneously. We will not be able to close one on one day and use the other. One of the things that sheriffs do is serve the warrants, and we need to continue to focus on taking people out of the community who commit crimes. We do not need to go into a community and take over a neighborhood. A lot of times, the people in the neighborhood know who is doing what.
Vaughn: We have several. One is that the spending is out of control. We have lost over 300 employees, and they are only making about $29,000 a year. They have low pay, they are not getting the training, and they are not getting the equipment they need. We have got to get the spending under control and we have to get qualified applicants in and pay them a living wage. Then, we need to make sure they have the equipment to do the job.
As sheriff, how will you foster an environment that ensures the fair treatment of minorities in Marion County?
Benjamin: I have held high positions with IMPD. It was a struggle, and I endured some lies against me. I am the only minority candidate running, the other four candidates are white males. I am certainly going to focus on diversity, as far as employment and contractors who offer services that the sheriff office needs. I have the trust of minorities in the community, that’s why we were so successful in reducing violent crimes and solving homicides … Another thing that differentiates me is that I want to bring back PAL, the Police Athletic League, for the youth. Deputies will coach, mentor, educate, tutor and sometimes discipline them as they advance in years.
Durham: We have our employees trained in cultural sensitivity for various reasons. For the foreigners that come in, the Burmese and the Hispanic community that are coming in, the Muslim population coming into Indianapolis, if they are incarcerated we have to be sensitive to their needs and religious beliefs. We want to make sure that through that training we have for our employees, we can take care of those needs.
Forestal: You can compare my history as the chief deputy. We were able to select management, and it reflected our county. It was important for us to ensure that minorities and females had opportunities. When we did the merger, Eva Talley-Sanders was the commander of the jail. She is an African-American female. She did not want to go to IMPD, but I was able to convince her to be assistant chief of police for IMPD. Nobody else had had an African-American female as assistant chief of police. Some other cities have, but not here. It’s important to give those opportunities.
Vaughn: One of the things I am most proud of in Southport is we have a large population of Chin refugees, about 23,000. For the last three or four years, we have worked to accommodate them and we started a Chin academy. We bring them in, show them what the police do and talk about driving and parking. I actually get out into the community and work with minorities. We find out the problems they are having and ask how can we, as law enforcement officers, help with those problems.
What resources will you use to address the mentally ill population?
Benjamin: It goes back to contractors who will provide those services, and we will get the best contractors in for those with mental illnesses. I will say this. The sheriff office and the police department, the only tools they had out in the field was to arrest them for public intoxication. That’s why they end up in jail, and they really shouldn’t be in jail. There is a pilot program going on right now called MCAT, where a psychiatrist, an officer, a medic and a social worker ride around in a van. They handle that person instead of arresting them, and we need that all over the county because it’s successful.
Durham: Even with the new criminal justice center being built, I want to have a new assessment center for the nonviolent mentally ill and addicted inmates. They can be sent there for evaluation or short-term treatment and referrals for long-term services. Often, mental illness and substance abuse goes hand in hand. I want to tap into colleges and universities and see if we can get some of the students working on their degrees to provide counseling for those who are mentally ill, and maybe teach them conflict resolution so they can return to society.
Forestal: One of the important things in the new criminal justice center is at least 300 beds are designated to help the mentally ill. Upwards of 40 percent of the (inmates) have mental health problems, and the hospitals that have dealt with that have closed. It falls on the sheriff of the county. We don’t want to be the largest mental institution — the goal of the sheriff is to hold people until they have court to decide if they are guilty or not guilty. But because we are in this position, we need to provide it. We need to make sure people get their medicine on time because a lot of times activity is controlled by medicine. I would look forward to taking more opportunities once the justice center opens.
Vaughn: I have reached out to Midtown Community Mental Health and we have talked about how it takes six months to get someone with a mental disability into the system. I think if they are in jail, we can start that process sooner. If they spend six months in jail when they get out we should be able to transport them there, we can get them their meds, and they can stop coming back to jail. The biggest challenge with (treating mental issues) is it’s not what a jail is for. Then we put them on the street and they end up back in jail. It is a vicious cycle. We have to work together with mental (health) facilities that understand how to help them.
How will you support the incarcerated population in Indianapolis?
Benjamin: What you don’t know is after my retirement from IMPD in 2012, I was a captain of the Marion County Sheriff’s Office. One of my jobs was to walk the jail, and the inmates would speak to me. Many times they would stop me and say, ‘Hey, I was supposed to be released days ago and I’m still here.’ I would go check and they were correct. I would have a plan that (ensures) inmates will be released immediately. We know sometimes people slip up, but its ridiculous for four, five days or two weeks to go by and they are still held in the jail. Running a humane jail involves clean clothes, quality nutrition, treating human beings like human beings. I am not going to stand for verbal or physical abuse from deputies inside the Marion County Jail. I’m just not going to stand for it.
Durham: I want to work with the American Civil Libraries Union and make sure we are doing the right things for the right reasons, at the right times to treat inmates in a humane way. That is our number one goal, to provide a safe and humane place for the inmates. A lot of that goes back to (needing) to have enough employees there. There is such a high turnover rate, we need to retain these employees, these deputy sheriffs, to help guard the inmates and provide assistance and services for those inmates that are in need.
Forestal: There are 60-plus programs that exist in the Marion county jail. You can get a GED. We have a lot of programs, but we like to get these things before they happen. Let’s not wait until somebody goes to jail before we have a chance to give them opportunities. We want to do things before that occurs.
Vaughn: We need to give them some type of education or skill set. If we are not making them better while they are in there, we are just putting that same person back on the street. We need to come up with better programs. The GED is big, but we are looking at trade programs so that when they get out they have a skill and can actually get a job.
Contact reporter Keshia McEntire at 317-762-7853. Follow her on Twitter @Keshiamc12.
Sheriff candidates
Democrat
Bill joined the Indianapolis Police Department in 1984. In 2009, Benjamin was promoted to deputy chief of criminal investigations where he led the nation in solving homicide cases with an 81 percent clearance rate. These efforts brought two TV shows to our city, “Crime 360” and “The Shift,” which depicted the work of the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department (IMPD) homicide branch.
Democrat
Kerry rose through the ranks during his nearly 40 years at the Marion County Sheriff’s Department. In 2010, Forestal was appointed by President Barack Obama to U.S. Marshal for the Southern District of Indiana. Kerry’s responsibilities included security over four federal courthouses in Indianapolis, Evansville, New Albany and Terre Haute.
Republican
Former Republican precinct committee person Brian Durham is a second generation Marion County Deputy Sheriff with 20 years of experience with IMPD.
Republican
Tom Vaughn is a second-generation law enforcement officer. Vaughn previously worked with Marion County Sheriff’s Department and Indianapolis Park Rangers. He is currently Chief of Police for Southport.
