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Opinion editorials Handling of Pit Appeal Calls for a Time-Out |
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opinion editorialsThis editorial first appeared in the Albuquerque Journal. It was written by editorial page staff and is unsigned as it represents the opinion of the newspaper rather than the writers
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Saturday, June 06, 2009
Night Dropoffs Feed Jail's Revolving Door
As a policy, dropping people off in the middle of the night in a part of town mostly deserted by everyone except the criminal element is a really bad one. Even if many of the passengers are just-released jail inmates.
Especially if they are just-released jail inmates.
If the goal of Bernalillo County officials is to try to stop the revolving door at its Metropolitan Detention Center, to help people break out of a cycle of addiction or abuse or criminal activity, then it should put an end to its current practice of sending its shuttle to Fourth and Roma in the dead of night where released prisoners have to "walk the gantlet" of pimps, dealers, hustlers and other upstanding citizens.
Sure, the corner is across from police headquarters. That building is closed from 5 p.m. to 7 a.m. Sure, there's a pay phone. But if it works, you still have to have change and someone to call. Sure, there's a bus system. It starts running around dawn. Sure, there are street lights. All the better to see you, my dear.
This irresponsible drop-off policy made headlines last year when two very different inmates were dumped Downtown in the wee hours of the morning. John Mathias, a 79-year-old arrested for not wearing a seat belt, hitched a safe ride home with another ex-inmate. Amber Archibeque, 22, released after serving three months on a parole violation, wasn't as fortunate. She apparently scored some heroin and overdosed on a bathroom floor.
The jail van kept running Downtown, 24-7.
The van is in the news again as one of the working groups tasked by Lt. Gov. Diane Denish to help women living high-risk lifestyles suggests the county stop setting them up to fail — or die — by abandoning them in the middle of the night. Denish set up the groups after the remains of 11 women were unearthed on the West Mesa. Those that have been identified all had spent time in MDC; some were undoubtedly familiar with Fourth and Roma at 2 a.m.
"Just from a safety perspective, dropping people off in the middle of the night ... is not appropriate," Denish says.
Denish — along with Lisa Simpson, who headed up one of the working groups and operates two programs that help women living on the fringe — is asking the county to change its policy.
Around 40,000 people pass through the jail's doors every year; it's understood officials can't hold them once they bond out or complete their sentence, much less force them to make smart choices.
But it should at least offer up some safe ones.
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