As Deputies and support personnel in the Marion County Sheriff’s Office, we see firsthand the explosion of crime in our county. While crimes have grown at an exponential rate the local population has increased dramatically, the Sheriff’s Office, District Attorney’s Office and Juvenile Division have fallen drastically behind.

With a .75 peace officers per population of 1,000 in Marion County, we fall well behind the national average of 2.5 peace officers for the same population. For that reason, response time to calls for service can be lengthy and an officer’s safety can be in jeopardy because a back-up officer can be 30 miles away. We are sometimes forced to place phone calls to victims rather than respond in person.

Likewise, the capacity of the Marion County jail has been drastically reduced due to previous year’s tax cut measures. The work center (which nightly housed offenders who would otherwise have been out on the streets) has been forced to close. An entire “pod” at the jail is in jeopardy of being shut down. These reductions could result in a total of 272 beds left vacant because not enough Corrections Deputies and other resources are available for supervision.

The Public Safety Levy will allow us to put more officers on the street and keep more offenders in jail. We feel there is no other reasonable option at this point. We offer our unified support of this funding measure and ask the people of Marion County to stand with us in our commitment to keep Marion County a safe community to live in by giving us the ability to do our jobs effectively.

PLEASE VOTE “YES” ON THE PUBLIC SAFETY LEVY.

Marion County Law Enforcement Association