On June 2, 2014, 58.9 percent of the 275 in-house inmates of the Chautauqua County Jail were unsentenced inmates; people who, according to the state Division of Criminal Justice Services, are either awaiting arraignment, trial, awaiting sentencing by the court or are parole violators with new arrests.

We’re sure some of those 162 inmates were people who had committed a crime serious enough or who were enough of a flight risk to warrant either no bail or a high bail. They are the type of person for whom we have jails and who we have advocated over the past few years need to be kept in jail. It makes sense that people pre-disposed to selling drugs or who have a proclivity for being charged for weapons crimes probably shouldn’t be out on bail while they wait to be sentenced.

One way to make sure that can happen is to have space in the jail that typically doesn’t exist now.

If you’re wondering why we started this editorial with the June 2, 2014, jail population, that’s because it is the census date with by far the fewest number of unsentenced inmates the jail has had in the past year. The number of unsentenced inmates reached a high of 84.4 percent of the jail population in November and was 75.9 percent in June 2015. That number comes at an average cost of $76 a day per inmate. So, unsentenced inmates cost the county $12,312 on June 2, 2014. That cost escalated to $18,468 on Nov. 2, 2014, and was $16,568 on June 2, 2014.

That’s a costly problem if, as Sheriff Joe Gerace says, a good percentage of the jail population is pre-sentenced inmates who are there only because they can’t afford bail and have no one to put up bail. Such costs are one reason there has been a renewed push for the Chautauqua County Criminal Justice Coordinating Council to meet and discuss alternatives to incarceration.

There is a fairness issue to be fixed too, however. Those who spend even a few days in jail can lose jobs or housing. The mentally ill certainly deserve better treatment than is possible in jail.

“So one can argue that only poor people are in here,” Gerace told The Post-Journal in mid-July. “We can build a better mousetrap.”

Gerace’s better mousetrap makes sense. The sheriff told The Post-Journal violators of parole from state prison should be housed in state prisons rather than wait, unsentenced, in county jails while they wait for parole hearings. And, those charged with a felony who are placed on probation should certainly go to state prison instead of the county jail. A transitional housing program in which unsentenced inmates are properly supervised and receive drug treatment, workforce training and mental health counseling – while being reprogrammed to be contributing members of society rather simply spinning through the revolving door of the county jail – are also worthy goals for the Chautauqua County Criminal Justice Coordinating Council to discuss.

We know that drug use and its spider web of crimes is a primary reason the Chautauqua County Jail is spending more time full than it ever has before. It makes sense, then, that programs that work with people after release, during incarceration and even before they are arrested are needed to keep the jail population under control. A lower jail population is better for taxpayers and better for our county as a whole.

It is time, as Gerace says, to build a better mousetrap.