Allen County Councilman Lagemann urges other leaders to discuss ways to fix problems in county jail

FORT WAYNE, Ind. (Fort Wayne’s NBC) - It’s been four days since we first reported on that that federal ruling where a judge ruled that Sheriff David Gladieux and the department must address a number of problems at the Allen County Jail.

Tuesday morning, we talked Republican Councilman Paul Lagemann on how to fix issues that deal with overcrowding, under-staffing and what that judge called “inhumane conditions.”

“We can’t stop people from doing bad things,” Lagemann said. “They’re going to keep doing that. There has to be an incarceration option. Unfortunately right now as we grow, so does the population of those incarcerated. Right now, council has a couple of different options. Is there a way to deal with the existing jail? From a crowding standpoint and from a code standpoint, it’s going to be pretty tough.”

It’s been a hot button issue across the county for years. Does Allen County need a new jail? Lagemann says yes.

“It’s almost more than 40 years now and it was really not intended for the population we have currently,” Lagemann said. “It’s way out of code in today’s standards and it goes vertical, so we can’t grow it sideways. We can’t grow it and add on. There is an empty floor, but it’s so far out of code. If we started trying to utilize that floor, it won’t work.”

Even though calls for a new jail are growing stronger, the judge says he wants to see short-term improvements almost right away by the middle of next month..

“We really need to sit down with the sheriff and with our council attorney and understand what this looks like,” Lagemann said. “Council controls the checkbook and as the sheriff identifies solutions that could potentially satisfy the judgement, we’ll take a really hard look at them and do what’s in the best interest of the county and the tax payer.”

Lagemann says it won’t be easy to get those problems fixed with the judges deadline approaching. However, he says the treatment of inmates needs to be top of mind.

“You can’t treat people inhumanely,” Lagemann said. “That’s not how we operate here in this country and that is certainly not how we should operate in Allen County.”

To be clear, Lagemann is a member of the county council, which is the body that would be in charge of funding the project.

The Commissioners sent us a statement Tuesday afternoon with a list of steps they say they’ve already taken including the creation of a residential services program and sharing inmates with other counties.

We spoke for the first time with the deputy chief of the sheriff’s department Monday. You can read that coverage here.

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