TRUMBULL COUNTY Judge is irked by lack of jail room

A contract says the city of Warren gets a guaranteed number of beds and rate.
By PEGGY SINKOVICH
VINDICATOR TRUMBULL STAFF
WARREN -- A municipal court judge says he may consider legal action if he cannot get prisoners booked into the county jail.
In a letter dated Jan. 22 to Ernie Cook, chief of operations at the jail, Judge Thomas Gysegem said there have been "dozens upon dozens" of people he's sentenced to jail that have been denied admittance to serve their sentence -- after going to the jail three times.
The judge said that after a person goes to the jail three times and is turned away, he cancels the sentence.
Warren, which no longer runs its own jail, contracts with the county for jail space. The contract states the city is guaranteed 30 beds at the rate of $45 a day.
According to city records, however, the city for the past three months has been averaging 15 prisoners a day and the jail has still turned away city prisoners, police say.
In judge's letter
"I speak to you for one reason, public safety," Judge Gysegem said in his letter. "From this date forward, in light of the contract that the city has entered into and the fact that we are not being given our guaranteed contractual capacity in jail bed space, I cannot foreclose the possibility of legal, equitable or summary action against Trumbull County and its officials."
Sheriff Thomas Altiere and Cook said they have tried to work with the city but noted they do not have enough space at the jail. They noted that because of the county's financial crisis, they had to accept federal inmates to help recoup money cut from the budget.
The judge states in his letter that he understands the county's budget problems but adds that city should get preferential treatment because it helped pay for construction of the jail and it also pays to house the prisoners.
"If we don't have the federal inmates, then we can't keep our doors open," Altiere said.
The jail houses inmates from the Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services (formerly the Immigration and Naturalization Service) and the U.S. Marshals Service for $65 per inmate per day.
Together, the two categories of federal inmates net the county about $100,000 a month, Cook said.
Violent offenders taken
Cook and the sheriff also noted that violent offenders are always accepted.
"We do turn away people brought in on driving under suspension or DUI if we are full," Altiere said.
Judge Gysegem also says in his letter that by turning down Warren's prisoners, the county is losing an estimated $250,000 a year.
The judge also said that when the city had its own jail, repeat DUI and DUS offenders were housed.
"We on the front lines down here in the criminal justice system are becoming the laughingstock of the streets," the judge says in his letter.
sinkovich@vindy.com