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Long booking times a strong argument for police using citation authority

Keeping more officers on the street for longer periods of time is perhaps the best argument for police to use their new authority granted by the Legislature last year to issue citations for low-level misdemeanors, followed as a close second by the fact that doing so reduces jail overcrowding.There's a significant opportunity cost involved with arresting somebody for driving with no insurance or possession of a joint: Most notably, while the officer is booking an arrestee into the jail, they're not available to respond to more serious crimes. In that vein, the FOX TV station in El Paso had a story last night about how much time it takes officers to process arrestees into the jail:When a patrol officer out on the field makes an arrest, he takes the suspect downtown to the El Paso County Jail to book that person -- a process that can take any where from 20 minutes to almost two hours...continue to full post

Full post as published by Grits for Breakfast on October 22, 2008 (boomark / email).