Editorial Roundup:

South Bend Tribune. March 15, 2020

With mistrust running high, South Bend needs a citizen review board.

The special prosecutor's report on the June 16 fatal police shooting of Eric Logan - which came after a seven-month investigation - left behind many lingering questions.

The shooting by police officer Ryan O'Neill, who is no longer on the force, was ruled to be 'œjustified'ť by Special Prosecutor Ric Hertel. O'Neill was charged with public indecency and misconduct for soliciting a prostitute a month before the shooting.

Hertel acknowledged that some issues in the case were not resolved.

Mayor James Mueller, who noted that it was 'œbeyond frustrating'ť there was no video of the critical moments of Logan shooting, added that the full truth may never be known.

In the midst of this uncertainty and frustration, as this community tries to move forward, one thing is clear about the right path to take. It's a direction that members of this community - activists, public officials, this editorial board - have advocated for in the past.

South Bend needs a citizen review board.

The idea, typically raised in the aftermath of alleged excess force and other misconduct, has never taken hold. That's because former mayors Pete Buttigieg and Steve Luecke have been lukewarm to the idea.

That's a shame, because, as we said in an April 2014 comment, a civilian review board would address the questions and concerns members of the public may have about a system from which they often feel alienated.

Such a system is sorely needed now, with mistrust running high.

The argument against a review board has been that the city already has a Board of Public Safety, whose members the mayor alone appoints and who serve indefinitely. But including a broader group of people in reviewing police actions is critical - as is making sure the group isn't appointed by one person. It would serve both members of the public and the police sworn to protect them.

At a public gathering on the day the special prosecutor's findings were announced, Mueller promised more community conversations in the effort to try to rebuild trust.

He could take a big step toward that goal with the creation of a civilian review board.

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The Anderson Herald Bulletin. March 14, 2020.

Bill goes too far in empowering landlords.

By passing Senate Bill 340, the Indiana legislature sided with landlords, tipping state law in their favor and against the interests of tenants.

The bill, which now goes to the governor's desk, blocks Indiana cities from regulating rental properties, thereby threatening current protections for tenants.

Renters of houses and apartments in Indiana generally have less control over their homes and less money than landlords, meaning renters typically are at a disadvantage when advocating for their rights. And this isn't a small group. Renters account for 31% of the 2.5 million households in Indiana, according to 2017 U.S. Census statistics.

Legislators should have been mindful of these factors when mulling SB 340, but 29 of 50 state senators and 64 of 100 state representatives voted to pass the bill Wednesday on the last full day of the 2020 General Assembly.

Republican legislators who supported the bill were motivated by their opposition to an ordinance approved by the Democrat-controlled Indianapolis City-County Council. The measure enables the fining of landlords for retaliating against renters who complain about living conditions. It also requires landlords to provide tenants with information about their legal rights.

n supporting SB 340, the GOP legislators argued that it is important to establish uniform statewide regulations to address landlord-tenant relationships.

But the bill removes the ability of local government to go beyond state law to assure that tenants' rights are protected. In Hoosier cities such as Indianapolis, South Bend and Columbus, councils found ample reason to pass anti-discrimination ordinances that could be canceled by SB 340.

In the case of landlord-tenant relationships, the Indianapolis council got it right by standing behind tenants, while the state legislature placed a toe on the wrong side of the scale.

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Logansport Pharos-Tribune. March 11, 2020.

THE ISSUE

Indiana's criminal code reforms have led to county jail overcrowding across the state.

SHARED VIEW

Those reforms have pushed the expense of corrections onto counties. They need relief. This session, if possible.

On July 1, 2014, more than 200 new laws were added to the Indiana Criminal Code. After six previous years of Statehouse proposals, study committees and debate, economics finally had caught up with the push by politicians to get tough on crime.

People who commit the most violent of crimes today are serving longer prison sentences. Fewer people who are convicted of low-level felonies are being sentenced to prison.

The result was easily foreseen: Counties are seeing huge spikes in non-violent offenders, who until recently would've been serving years within the Indiana Department of Correction. Now our jails are struggling to make room for local inmates and keep up with the costs to house them.

A report from the Pew Center for the States in 2010 found Indiana's state prison population had grown by 41% from 2000 to 2008. That was significantly higher than the 12% average for the nation as a whole in that same time period.

Why did our prison population grow so quickly? The Pew study put the blame on harsher sentencing and corrections policies over the past three decades.

To reverse the trend, then-Gov. Mitch Daniels and a number of Indiana lawmakers proposed reforms they said would create a more precise set of drug and theft sentencing laws that would give judges more options.

They proposed strengthening community supervision by focusing resources on high-risk offenders and to reduce recidivism by increasing access to community-based substance abuse and mental health treatment.

Many of these proposals finally were adopted in 2014. But the reforms didn't include funding to improve probation, parole and treatment programs on the county level.

Lawmakers addressed that oversight in the 2015 legislative session, providing $116 million for community corrections and increasing funding for mental health and addiction treatment by $30 million.

This legislative session, Senate Bill 120 and House Bill 1622 would've raised the state's reimbursement rate from $35 per inmate to $55. Neither made it out of committee.

Rep. Ryan Lauer, R-Columbus, told his local newspaper he and his colleagues inserted into the state budget bill language that would raise the reimbursement rate to $37.50 per day this fiscal year and $40 per day in 2021.

The criminal code reforms of 2014 put the state of Indiana on the right track economically. But over the last six years, they only have pushed the expense of corrections onto counties.

They need relief. This session, if possible.