S. Tucson: We don't deserve huge jail bill

Because many of those arrested in South Tucson don't live there, South Tucson, which does not have its own jail, wants taxpayers countywide to pay the arrears and pick up the tab for future lawbreakers.

County officials are considering giving South Tucson at least part of what it wants.

South Tucson has a misdemeanor arrest rate more than five times higher than anywhere else in Pima County, and nearly 85 percent of those arrested don't have a South Tucson mailing address.

Portions of the unpaid jail bill date back more than a decade.

"We need to pay our share. But quite frankly, our share is nowhere even near what we're being charged," said Enrique Serna, South Tucson city manager. "We can't afford to let this fiscal obligation continue, because it threatens our viability as a city."

County Administrator Chuck Huckelberry said the unpaid bill "doesn't have to be resolved immediately." While the county is "looking at latitude in the interest," which is around $314,000, he said, forgiving the actual prisoner housing cost will be more difficult.

Serna said he expects the Board of Supervisors "will be considerate of the dilemma we're in."

Although Huckelberry said he's looking mostly at the unpaid interest, District 2 Supervisor Ramón Valadez said he would consider waiving the principal, too. "It's really a regional responsibility," he said.

Pat Benchik, behavioral-health administrator for the county, found there is a flow of traffic from one service agency to the next.

"The city of South Tucson is virtually a walking campus for Pima County's homeless who are engaged in services," said Benchik, who studied the arrest rate. "There is a natural confluence of homeless and at-risk individuals seeking services from the agencies that populate this corridor."

The South Tucson area has the largest concentration of homeless service organizations in the county, Benchik found.

Compounding the problem is the flow of traffic, with Interstate 10 cutting through and the railroad as a geographic border, as well as downtown Tucson and the jail nearby. Also, the only bus coming from the Pima County jail heads directly into South Tucson.

That leaves South Tucson "disproportionately having to pay for the costs of incarcerating individuals" that are "the responsibility of the greater community," Serna said.

Beyond paying the bill, how to change the arrest rate is a challenge, Benchik said, that will involve cooperation from social service agencies and South Tucson's police, city officials and community at large.

For Lt. Sean Stewart, a corrections officer at the Pima County jail, incarceration is taking over the roles of other institutions that were shut down or lost funding. Working with security in the intake area, where every inmate is processed, Stewart sees vulnerable populations ending up in jail all the time, he said.

"The Pima County jail is the biggest mental-health institution in Pima County," Stewart said.

Sometimes, prisoners will say they just wanted to get off the street, take a shower, sleep in a bed or even receive medical treatment, Stewart said.

"We're stuck. Once they get booked, we have to deal with whatever's going on until they go to the courtroom and (authorities) release them," Stewart said.

Brian Flagg, of Casa Maria Soup Kitchen, disputes the idea that homeless are intentionally committing crimes to access these services, but mental-health issues certainly surface in the jailhouse because it's hard for the poor to be treated for mental-health issues.

"I think people's access to the mental-health system comes through when they get arrested," Flagg said.

New facilities including the Crisis Response Center, scheduled to open in August, and Desert Hope, a new substance-abuse program that opened in June, can help first responders transport people who need psychiatric services, Benchik said.

Benchik said studies have shown a strong connection between homelessness and mental illness and substance abuse.

"It isn't somebody's fault. It's about what to do about it," Benchik said.

Because of their underlying problems, former South Tucson Police Chief Sixto Molina agrees incarceration should be a last resort for many of those people, especially because transient people often don't show up for their court dates.

"Everybody knows they're not going to appear. Most of them don't even know what day it is," Molina said. "All jail is going to do is warehouse them overnight and get them out of sight, and the taxpayer has to foot the jail bill."

But current South Tucson Police Chief Richard Muñoz said options are still limited. "We can't just stop taking them to jail. We could, but they're going to keep committing crime, he said.

"It's kind of a vicious circle," Muñoz said. "We also have to make sure we keep our community safe."

Benchik, Serna and Huckelberryhave all discussed changing their approach to arrests, and are hopeful these new centers can help address the root causes of many of these misdemeanors.

Still, Muñoz said, "We're pretty much bound by public policy."

But he added that those policies, like no drinking in public, also help address issues for people who otherwise wouldn't seek help.

"What else are we going to do with this person if they don't want treatment?"

"There is a natural confluence of homeless and at-risk individuals seeking services from the agencies that populate this corridor."

Pat Benchik, behavioral-health administrator for Pima County