One of the side effects of the stay at home Coronavirus world is less crime and less criminals in jail. Several weeks ago area jails began releasing some inmates to create more space to battle Coronavirus. For St. Joseph county it appears that those efforts, and some changes in arrest policies, have helped.

St. Joseph County Sheriff Bill Redmen tells WSBT that right now the jail is at about 50% capacity. He also detailed some changes that officers have made–for example they are only arresting for violent crimes. Other cases are instead going through a longer process of gathering information and submitting a report to the prosecutor for them to determine if a warrant can be issued later.

Read the full report here with WSBT

Thus far the jail has had no cases of COVID-19 among inmates.