Expediting justice is like putting money in the bank

It is not exactly Dick Tracy talk- ing into his two-way wrist-radio, but it’s an important communication tool for Mahoning County law enforcement.

It is “E-justice,” a computer system that will connect the Mahoning County Courthouse, County Jail, City Hall and major outlying police departments.

As described to county commissioners this week by Auditor Michael V. Sciortino, E-justice has the potential to increase efficiency in the criminal justice system. And that means not only the quality of justice will be improved, but the cost of providing it will be reduced.

The genesis for this system can be traced to a lawsuit that was filed against overcrowding in the jail and subsequent court oversight of the operations.

One of the reasons for overcrowding in the jail was a backlog in the courts. A speedy trial is not only a constitutional right, providing one is a mark of efficient government. Even when a defendant has waived his right to a speedy trial, the object should be to expedite a trial or a plea bargain because keeping people locked up is costly.

Jail vs. penitentiary

On major felonies, a trial and conviction or a plea bargain allows the county to transfer the prisoner to a state penitentiary. Some less serious cases will inevitably result in incarceration at the jail (for up to a year, depending on the statute). But many of those prisoners can be diverted by use of alternative sentencing.

Sciortino says most of the hardware is in place through a network that links the courts, jail, police departments and 911 dispatching centers through the county’s data centers. A $360,000 federal grant, along with matching county funds raised through a bond sale, will provide the software and hardware to complete the link.

The courts, sheriff’s department and police departments all have a vested interest in making this system a success, and they have been working with the data center toward that end.

There have been some horror stories over the years of “forgotten” prisoners, missed deadlines and even prisoners released before their time. Those instances, while few and far between, were attributable to human error.

A properly designed computer system has the potential to eliminate such oversights and to better serve the accused, the convicted and the taxpayer. Fighting crime is necessarily expensive. But it should never be wasteful.