Published: March 16, 2008 08:29 pm            

CURRAN: She goes on the record about open records

Journalists shouldn’t have monopoly on public documents

Our journalism instructor had given us a simple assignment: Go to our local police departments and ask for an incident report, any incident report. As the Jeffersonville police station was less than five minutes from my home, I considered this an easy little bit of homework, a fortunate thing since extra time wasn’t something I had much of then.

The woman I spoke to at the station wanted to know whether I was involved in an incident and whether I was actually a reporter. Upon receiving a “no” to both those questions, she gave me a “no” to my request. My instructor wasn’t mad at me, but was not at all impressed with our local police department.

In the fall of 2001, Clark County was being confronted with the decision of whether to implement a local income tax. This tax was primarily being pushed as a way to fund a desperately needed jail expansion. The papers were running frequent stories about how overcrowded the jail was, the number of beds we had compared to those needed and the extravagant costs of sending prisoners to other jails.

It was alarming to learn how dangerous the county had become. My understanding was the jail’s capacity was 197 and it was busting at the seams. Could there really be that many people in Clark County that needed to be locked up at any given time? Did I need to keep the kids in the house all the time and buy a gun?

It would be helpful to get a snapshot of how many people were at the jail at a given time and categorize the charges, separating violent crimes or property offenses from more minor and victimless violations.

I approached Capt. Sam Beard at the jail with my request. He said releasing the information would violate the confidentiality of the inmates. I pointed out that made little sense as book-in information is published in the newspaper. He then told me he couldn’t give me the information because I wasn’t a journalist. I then mentioned I had a copy of the open records portion of the Indiana Code out in my vehicle, but I’d rather not go get it.

He agreed to provide the information in a few days and then called in sick the day I was supposed to pick it up. Someone else was in charge that day that didn’t stonewall at all and soon provided the information. I received a huge pile of Booking Management Forms, mostly duplicates and many complete with Social Security numbers.

If what I received was complete information, the jail only had 175 inmates at that time. Forty-one were charged with property offenses including trespassing, and 9 were being held for violent crimes including misdemeanor battery. There was not one murderer, attempted murderer or rapist in the bunch, something to keep in mind next time you look at that locality-tax section on your pay stub or w-2.

These events happened several years ago, and I hope Jeffersonville and Clark County have improved how they handle information that should be accessible to the public. There are still a few important points to be made here.

First, though the role of a free press is important in our society, they should not, and legally do not, have a monopoly on access to government information. Members of the press do not always ask the right questions and sometimes have their own agenda.

Second, the public, particularly voters being asked to cough up additional money, have every right to fully understand to what they’re being asked to contribute. We bemoan a lack of civic engagement, yet seem to leave all the engaging to the politicians and media.

Given that the average citizen does not get paid to check up on government and, in fact, gets charged for all that government does, getting the information needed to make informed decisions should not be like pulling teeth nor take an extraordinary amount of time. We spend millions supposedly educating our children to be informed citizens while trying to prevent citizens from being informed when they’re willing to do it for free.

It would be nice to think that since there has been a more concerted push, particularly in Indiana, to inform government officials and the public about open records laws, along with a general trend toward better public relations, these incidents would be less likely.

The third time I attempted to receive public information from a local government department happened recently.

I called the Clarksville Police Department to request a copy of the report about an incident at McDonald’s involving some free food. I was told no copy would be made available to me and I would not be told the names of the officers involved. The report had been made available to the local paper, and that was good enough.

It is ironic that I was later berated for missing some alleged nuances of the story that only the officers involved knew.

Jeffersonville resident Kelley Curran celebrates open records week because she already has enough people in her life telling her to stick it where the sun don’t shine. Write her at kelinawriterhat@aol.com.

        

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