[420 Girl]

A MONTH AGO, Sangamon County Sheriff Neil Williamson urged county police chiefs to help ease overcrowding in the county jail by not arresting people accused of some minor offenses.

Rather than being booked into the Sangamon County Jail, those offenders should instead receive orders to appear in court, Williamson recommended.

NOW COMES Springfield Ward 2 Ald. Gail Simpson with a suggestion that not only would fit Williamson’s request, but might also be a useful tool in the effort to keep Springfield’s two branch libraries open in the face of a strained city budget.

Simpson has proposed that Springfield change its enforcement of some minor offenses — possession of alcohol by a minor, possession of drug paraphernalia and possession of less than 2.5 grams of marijuana — so that offenders are not booked into the county jail but instead receive court summonses. The city would then collect the fines they generate.

Though new to Springfield, Simpson’s idea is not unique. It’s modeled on the system already in place in Rockford.

GIVEN THE FISCAL straits in which the city now finds itself, the strong public outcry over library branches being cut to save $370,000 a year and Williamson’s request about limiting arrests, there is no question that Simpson’s idea is worthy of further study.

Williamson this week said he would have no objection to the city implementing Simpson’s proposal, though he cautioned that the city council should be aware of possible implications of including marijuana possession in a prospective ordinance.

“The only problem with that is that if that person is a dealer … and we just give them a ticket, we wouldn’t be able to capture any information from them down at the jail, like fingerprints or a photo, for use maybe a couple years down the road,” Williamson said. “If we don’t get them when we have them, they may graduate to a bigger crime in two or three years” without having ever been fingerprinted or photographed. That’s one of the arguments Williamson heard from local law enforcement officials after issuing his request for fewer jail bookings last month.

“It’s a double-edged sword. Either way you go it’s going to be controversial,” Williamson said.

THE OTHER ISSUE is that changing the policy won’t provide nearly the $370,000 the city says it will save by closing the branches. So far this year Springfield police have made 222 arrests on the three charges in Simpson’s proposal. Of those, 144 were for possession of less than 2.5 grams of marijuana. Even at the full $1,000 maximum misdemeanor state fine, all of these cases would not have replaced the library funds.

But if reducing jail overcrowding and finding creative ways to preserve valuable resources like the library branches are the goals, the city can’t afford to not give Simpson’s proposal serious consideration. Frankly, the offenses she cites are exactly the kinds of infractions that should not be straining the jail’s limited space.

And this is exactly the kind of creative proposal the city will need as it struggles to balance its budget.

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