TWIN LAKES — More offenders in Twin Lakes chose jail time over fines this year, sending the village over-budget to pay for their upkeep.

“They are out of work,” Village Judge Bruce Goodnough said. “There is no way to extract money from people who have no income.”

The decision by some to serve out their sentence in the Kenosha County Jail spiked costs to the village — which pays the county $13 a day to house inmates — and led Goodnough to develop an adult community service program he hopes to implement soon.

“They elected, on their own, to go to jail,” Goodnough said. “They voluntarily turned themselves in.”

It is not a penalty Goodnough likes to see people take. The court will instead accept as little as $5 per month from people who are assessed fines for municipal ordinance violations. However, many of the people who come before him with retail theft, traffic citations and other ordinance violations indicate they have been without work for as long as nine months.

“I try very hard not to incarcerate anyone,” Goodnough said. “It is a burden to taxpayers.”

Taxpayer burden

The number of days Twin Lakes was billed for jail time more than quadrupled this year, from 54 days to 230 days to date.

Two individuals who elected to be detained account for a large number of the increased days, Goodnough said. One served 55 days for retail theft and another served 49 days for causing damage to property with a vehicle while driving without a valid license. Several more of the 14 people incarcerated this year stayed in jail an average of 25 days.

Combined with an increase in the daily cost of incarceration from $5 to $13 per day, it has led to a village budget deficit. The 2009 budget included $350 for detention costs and the village has spent nearly $3,000.

The daily cost will continue to increase to $21 per day in 2010, $28 in 2011, $36 in 2012 and to $44 in 2013 to fall in line with what municipalities in other counties are charged. It was a charge the county had not increased in many years.

Goodnough said it is still a fair cost.“It’s hard to even feed them for that,” he said.

Faced with this, the village increased its budget for jail costs to $5,000 for 2010. Goodnough hopes the implementation of an adult community service program will help keep that cost below budget.

An alternative

Goodnough said Kenosha County does have a work crew that people can be placed on which keeps them out of jail and the municipality from having to pay for them to be there. However, to be assigned to the county work crew the detainee must have a valid driver’s license or reliable transportation and meet other requirements. Many of the people who fail to pay their fines and forfeitures have had their licenses suspended as result of this delinquency and do not qualify for the work crew.

A local adult community service program would provide such an alternative at the local level.

“It is going to have to be voluntary, but I think it will be an option people will choose,” Goodnough said. “The village is agreeable to it. They believe it is a good alternative, as do I.”

Goodnough said there are still come details to be worked out. For example, the people doing the service work will need to be monitored and there needs to be an agreement in place with the unions that would otherwise be doing the tasks the work crew members will be doing.

He said he believes there is enough work to be done. For example, the Park Board has a list of items to be done. Goodnough said he hopes to put the labor skills of the people who choose this option to appropriate use when possible.

“They are contractors and tradesmen,” he said. “We are pretty much a blue collar community here.”

Economic trend?

Reports suggest increased jail time associated with an inability by people to pay their fines is an international trend. Jailers from Kentucky, Texas and as far off as Taiwan reported earlier this year jails are overcrowded as a result of inmates who were picked up for failing to pay fines as a result of the economic downturn.

Twin Lakes is the only municipality in Kenosha County to report such a substantial rise in the number of days it was billed by the county for detention services.

Data from the Kenosha County Jail shows other municipalities saw a decrease in the number of days people sat in jail, with the exception of a six-day increase in Wheatland.