Former police chief, head investigator face off in race

James Kennedy is not concerned about students as he prepares for Election Day and a chance at the position of Monroe County Sheriff.\nKennedy -- who earned his law degree from IU, taught criminal justice for 25 years and served as the chief of IU Police Department and Bloomington Police Department, -- said students are not a problem for local law enforcement.\n"The students are not the people that are in our jail, except sometimes on weekends when you have disturbances," Kennedy said. "When students are jailed, they're in for minor offences, but they're bonded and out in no time."\nKennedy said he is more concerned with problems he feels Monroe County at-large needs to face. These include an overcrowding of jail cells and an underfunding of personnel. Funding is an easier fix, one that Kennedy hopes can be addressed by working with the commissioners to work out issues with salaries. He sees the jail as more of a community issue. \n"That is going to have to be done in conjunction with other parts of the criminal justice system and with concerned citizen groups," Kennedy said.\nOne of the main problems with jail overcrowding is recidivism, or the tendency for criminals to commit crimes again, which Kennedy said accounts for about 70 percent of the current inmate population. He is in favor of transition programs like re-entry court to reduce this problem, especially in the case of those with addictions. \n"The sheriff is in a strange situation. You're focusing on law enforcement and also a warden in some respects. You can't do a lot, but at least you can give them an opportunity," he said.\nAnother problem with jail overcrowding is the presence of those with mental illnesses. Kennedy explained that when mental health centers started to close in the 1980s, they essentially said the local community should to take responsibility and care for the mentally ill. The problem is the same for juvenile criminals: A proper facility simply does not exist. \n"I'm in favor of anything we can do to house them," Kennedy said. \nCurrently, it takes two to three hours to transport juveniles to the nearest treatment center.\n"That's an expense we're paying now, and we're losing a deputy that should be out in the county," he said.\nAs for maximizing service time for deputies, Kennedy is in favor of changing the current system of roll call. Current policy requires all deputies to report to the downtown sheriff's station at the beginning and end of their shifts, often a location far from their patrol zone. "There's no reason they can't go on duty from their home location from a radio," Kennedy said. "That's what it's for."\nAside from local law enforcement experience, Kennedy is a retired colonel for the United States Army and United States Marshal for Southern Indiana.\n"I think with my experience and my record and my knowledge of the community that I can do things for the community that have not been done previously," Kennedy said.