On today’s edition of Bring It On!, host Clarence Boone and co-host Liz Micthell spend the hour with Sheriff Ruben Marté.  He joins us this evening to discuss progress toward achieving administrative goals amidst the need for jail renovations and the possible construction of a new facility.

Marté was elected Sheriff of Monroe County in November of 2022. Previously, he had worked for 31 years for the Indiana State Police. He was a captain in the office of the superintendent. Marté was appointed as the ISP’s first equity and inclusion officer during that tenure. Sheriff Marté campaigned on a platform with four elements:

1) increasing public safety;

Upon being sworn in, Sheriff Marté shed light upon poor structural conditions and overcrowding at the Monroe County Jail and has routinely advocated for improvements. In January of this year, The Monroe County Sheriff’s Office stated current county jail conditions have improved amid efforts to establish a new facility. Sheriff Ruben Marté and his staff presented evidence of improvements at a January county council meeting. One option currently being explored is purchasing land to construct a new jail.

In August, Dave Askins of the B-Square Bulletin reported that “it is now roughly three years since retained county consultants delivered reports, one of which concluded that Monroe County’s jail is ‘failing’ and is not able to provide constitutional levels of care. The jail currently operates under a 2009 settlement agreement with the ACLU, which filed a lawsuit over crowded conditions at the jail. The settlement agreement has been extended several times.”

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