Booking fee not unfair to those charged with crimes
Staff writer
It's part of letting the punishment fit the crime, and of proving that crime (really) doesn't pay.
"It" is the newly enacted (June 30) $45 booking fee that anyone booked into the Marion County Jail in Marion on any criminal charge must pay, if convicted or diverted, or if their case is adjudicated.
The $45 fee is a separate court cost to be imposed if the person is convicted or diverted on any misdemeanor or felony charge that requires taking of fingerprints.
The money collected from this will go into Marion County's general fund.
County Sheriff Lee Becker said, "an officer's time is spent 40 percent on patrol, the rest on administrative duties," such as booking inmates/defendants.
The resolution creating the $45 booking fee was an attempt to "have those utilizing or tying up our time on the criminal side, pay for it.
The sheriff's office, Becker said, will fingerprint bank tellers, insurance personnel, and others who must be bonded, for free. They also will fingerprint teachers and other school personnel at no charge.
But those causing problems of a criminal nature must "pay their way" now. "We can recoup a little bit, that way," Becker said Thursday.
"Officers have paperwork and follow-up interviews to do, too," the sheriff pointed out. Or someone who must be arrested may live "way out" in the county, an hour away from Marion. The deputy may have to go see them five times before catching them at home.
Last week, sheriff's officers had to make round-trip "transport runs" to Erie and Chanute and back. When those defendants arrived here, they were "OR-ed out" (they were released on own-recognizance bonds), Becker said. There also were "transports" to Harvey and Lyon counties, Becker said.
The office also makes juvenile transports, and if an inmate sentenced from here wants or needs to make an appeal or other court appearance, sheriff's officers must go and get him or her from places as far away as Topeka and Norton.
"There's a lot of administrative work for the deputies," Becker said.
"Then they have to do their 'normal' duties, too — investigations, returning phone calls, and other items," he said.
With fewer people in the jail here, as has been the case lately, it's not as bad for the deputies as when there are 15-20 inmates housed here.
"We have taken 10 or 12 inmates to state prisons in the last six weeks," Becker said.
With county attorney Susan Robson's help, the county also can now charge guilty parties for the costs of meth-lab clean-ups. Vehicles and other assets can be seized as well.
"The county attorney is helping us with that," Becker said.
