Marion County Sheriff to area police: If you arrest them, you book them because we can't afford it

Marion County Sheriff John Layton says he will quit providing local law enforcement agencies with a host of services tied to public safety and transportation of people under arrest as he grapples with a limited budget and personnel.

Layton said in a notice Friday to the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department and other county law enforcement agencies that his deputies will quit providing security at hospital rooms where people under arrest are being treated, quit transporting to jail people placed under arrest and quit administering the intake process at county jails.

"The current situation has forced us to make difficult decisions," Layton wrote in the note.

The note was sent to area media Monday night about the same time Indianapolis Mayor Joe Hogsett introduced a proposed 2018 budget that calls for a cut to the sheriff's office budget.

The changes mean the arresting law enforcement agencies will be required to transport arrestees to jail and must provide security for arrestees held at area hospitals. Layton's note also suggests the Arrestee Processing Center, where people under arrest are now booked before going to jail, would close.

MCSO services at the processing center would cease Jan. 1, the notice said. The other changes would begin Sept. 24. 

A statement from the local Fraternal Order of Police said the police officers union has concerns about the narrow timeline but is confident IMPD Chief Bryan Roach will manage the situation.

The FOP suggested a review to determine what resources and equipment will be needed as other agencies assume the tasks the MCSO provided.  

"This should include an analysis of any such budgetary allocations, equipment transfers and personnel equivalents made to the sheriff's department when they assumed these responsibilities as part of the merger in 2007," the statement said.

IMPD and MCSO merged in 2007.

IMPD spokesman Sgt. Kendale Adams told IndyStar on Tuesday that the department likely would revert to the same structure it employed before the merger went into effect, with officers assigned specifically to transportation detail. Otherwise, he said officers can take their own arrestees to be booked. 

Adams said there's still time before those changes are slated to go into effect for the MCSO and IMPD to figure out what system works best. 

"We’re looking forward to the conversations that will happen between obviously the sheriff’s department and us, the mayor’s office and City-County Council to determine what the right solution is," he said.

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Cumberland Police Chief Mike Crooke said his department is concerned and will closely monitor the impact the changes will bring. Transporting arrestees could result in delays to nonemergency calls, he said.

"I appreciate the fact that Sheriff Layton has been able to continue this service for law enforcement agencies in Marion County," Crooke said in a news release. "I am confident that his decision comes as a last resort."

In the notice, Layton said that the MCSO is not required to provide such services, and that elsewhere in Indiana, they are provided by the arresting law enforcement agency. 

Layton cited "declining revenues and personnel challenges" as factors contributing to the changes, as well as "severe and persistent" jail overcrowding and an opioid epidemic that continues to "drain valuable resources." He said his decision was six months in the making.

"I know as a career public safety official that we all share a responsibility in making Indianapolis and Marion County a safer place, and that we also share the burden of being forced to do more with less," Layton wrote in the notice. 

Call IndyStar reporter Holly Hays at (317) 444-6156. Follow her on Twitter: @hollyvhays.