BY CINDY SCHROEDER
The Cincinnati Enquirer
COVINGTON -- As Kenton County officials try to decide where to build a jail, statistics on prisoner bookings will be among the factors in determining a site.
About 41 percent of the Kenton County Jail's prisoners are arrested by Covington police, down from 47 percent in 1990, newly compiled county statistics show.
But while Covington saw its prisoner bookings drop, arrests by many other Kenton County police agencies have increased, Kenton County Jailer Don Younger said.
"If you've got several police departments that are making more arrests now, that has to weigh on where you put the jail," Mr. Younger said. "These smaller departments have fewer officers, and some of them are increasing their bookings."
County officials say a new jail is needed because of crowding and high operating costs at the present jail in Covington. Although it was expanded in 1987, the jail -- spread over four floors in the Kenton County Administration Building -- is inefficient to run, Mr. Younger said. It also is overcrowded.
Kenton County police agencies that have seen their bookings increase since 1990 include Fort Mitchell, Kenton County, Elsmere, Ludlow, Lakeside Park, Park Hills, Taylor Mill, Dixie (now Crescent Springs), Independence and Edgewood.
Bookings from the Kentucky Department of Corrections also have increased, as well as arrests by jail deputies, who recently took over the task of serving arrest warrants, Mr. Younger said. "Kenton County has one-third of the officers that Covington has, and that department brought in 778 prisoners" last year, Mr. Younger said. "What does that do as far as having officers off the street?
"One of the questions we have to ask (in picking a jail site) is: Can we make it more equitable so that Kenton County and some of the smaller departments don't have to go so far, and be off the street so long?" Mr. Younger said.
Since 1990, Kenton County police have seen the largest increase in the percentage of total prisoner bookings at the jail -- from 413 prisoners, or 3.79 percent of the total bookings, to 778 prisoners, or 6.64 percent, the county's statistics show.
"What drives our arrests is the population shift in the county," said Kenton County Police Chief Michael Browning. "As Covington's percentage of bookings continue to decrease, ours are going up."
As population has increased, so have calls for service, and Kenton County has increased the number of police officers since 1990 in an effort to keep up with the demand, Chief Browning said. Also boosting Kenton County's arrests are the department's participation in the Traffic Alcohol Program and a federal grant program that pays overtime to five police departments to patrol for speeders on Interstate 75.
In deciding whether to arrest someone, a number of factors come into play, including how busy a particular police department is on a given shift and how long it will take an officer to transport a prisoner to the jail and return to his or her area of assignment, Chief Browning said.
"I think that these statistics do support our desires to place the jail in a location that causes the least amount of negative impact on the police departments making the most arrests," Chief Browning said. "The jail definitely needs to be more centrally located."
Other police agencies that have seen their bookings drop include the Kenton County Sheriff's Department; Kentucky State Police; Probation and Parole; and police departments in Fort Wright, Erlanger, Villa Hills and Bromley.
Bookings also dropped for the Northern Kentucky Drug Strike Force, the Commonwealth Attorney's Office, the FBI, Secret Service, postal inspectors, U.S. marshals and the CSX police.
