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Last updated on Friday, November 28, 2014
(EVANSVILLE) - The Vanderburgh County Jail opened in 2005 to ease overcrowding and the jail is still dealing with that issue.
Sheriff Dave Wedding says the jail is almost always at or near capacity.
With more than 500 inmates every month, Wedding says they're always working to keep people out of jail.
One of the ways the county has been doing that is through alternative sentencing options, like home detention or drug and alcohol programs.
ABK tracking handles some of that, and company officials say since they introduced some new technology more than a year ago, they've seen success.
By making non-violent criminals get back into the work force and pay to be a part of the programs, ABK says they're taking some of the financial burden off of the jail and are helping crowding issues, something Sheriff Wedding says, they're always keeping an eye on.
"We're always trying to communicate with the judges and the prosecutors to let them know our inmate population and then work on ways to get the people with lesser charge crimes with alternative sentencing options, but then the people who need to be in jail will certainly stay in jail," said Sheriff Wedding.
Sheriff Wedding says they'll continue to use these alternative programs as well as the bond system to try to keep crowding down.
He says they want to avoid having to ever build a bigger jail because that would be expensive.
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