Indiana officials on Friday pushed the decision back to the local level on whether to release jail inmates in response to the COVID-19 outbreak.
Vanderburgh County Sheriff Dave Wedding says while they’re monitoring the inmates at the county jail closely, right now they’re not considering releasing anyone just because of the outbreak.
Wedding said, “We are working very diligently on only bringing in the people we feel truly need to be incarcerated. That’s one of the best ways we’re going to control COVID-19.”
Sheriff Wedding says jail officials are working closely with Evansville police, the Vanderburgh County prosecutor and local judges to manage the jail population during the outbreak.
Sheriff Wedding says the total jail population is under five hundred inmates right now, which he calls a manageable number to be able to keep the coronavirus under control with extraordinary cleaning and additional physical distancing measures.
