SCOTT COUNTY SHERIFF PLANS FOR THE NEW YEAR

BENTON -- Deputies of the Scott County Sheriff's Department spent a lot of time on the road in January.

In the first 31 days of the new year, deputies handled 436 complaints or calls for assistance, served 252 civil and criminal court papers and transported 12 prisoners to state corrections facilities.

In addition, deputies took 11 inmates to the hospital or dentist for medical problems and transported extradited prisoners from Texas, Florida and Kentucky.

"We do all that with six deputies," said Scott County Sheriff Bill Ferrell. "And we wonder why we don't have time for in-depth investigations of persons suspected of committing crimes in the county."

But with the county commission's approval of the department's budget for 1994, there looks to be a light at the end of the tunnel.

Ferrell has been given the green light by the county commission to hire two new deputies, which hopefully will begin work some time in March.

"We are real backlogged right now," said Ferrell. "I can guarantee the new people will have plenty to do."

A priority for the Scott County Sheriff's Department in the upcoming year will be staffing to support the new 911 systems that have come into existence in the county.

"It makes no sense to save a couple of seconds on an emergency telephone call if we still have to get a deputy out of bed to answer the complaint," Ferrell said. "People have voted the 911 system in and expect immediate response to their calls for assistance, and it will just take more personnel to provide that service on a 24-hour basis."

Currently, when an emergency call comes in at night, the jailer will immediately respond to the scene, while department dispatchers contact the on-call deputy.

"When we get our new deputies, the first thing we will do is have someone who works a night shift," said Ferrell. "It will actually save money in the respect that we will not be paying an off-duty, on-call deputy overtime for responding to calls throughout the night."

The department as a whole has racked up a considerable amount of overtime in the past year and a half, Ferrell said. And because there are so few deputies in the department, comp-time is not an option.

"First we had that (Angela Lawless) murder in late 1992 which just about killed us in overtime," said Ferrell. "Then with the flooding this summer, we had deputies working security in Commerce for a good many hours.

"People get burned out," he continued. "They can only work so many hours per day and continue to do a quality job."

The other deputy position will be utilized to serve a backlog of warrants at the department.

"With over 1,000 active warrants on our warrant list, we will be putting more emphasis on getting these people into custody and into the court system," said Ferrell. "A vast majority of these active warrants are bad check cases, and other non-violent crimes, but here again, people have been victimized, warrants have been issued, and the victims have a right to expect that these people will be arrested."