NWA EDITORIAL: Despite attention, progress on the molasses-like courts processes slow to come

Someone in a position to expect, and potentially get, productive answers has asked the critical question. Here how it was reported on April 29: "County Judge Patrick Deakins on Thursday asked representatives of the county's courts and law enforcement agencies to explain why court cases may linger in the judicial system for months or even years at a time."

In our editing mode, we might have eliminated the word "may." Because court cases do linger, and very few people understand why.

Deakins was speaking to Washington County's Criminal Justice Coordinating Committee's monthly meeting, which does a lot of talking about the challenges of law enforcement and courts. The county judge -- a government administrator, not the black-robed kind who imposes prison sentences -- helms a government trying to figure out the future of its incarceration responsibilities, i.e., the county jail. The jail is overcrowded and county leaders look to spend several million dollars on expansion.

Nobody loves spending more money on jailing people. Some recognize the necessity even as they lament the high costs. Others suggest more people could be let go while awaiting trial or better educated and supported before they're released so they don't simply return to a life of crime.

The county judge's office is in charge of all county buildings. Reducing incarceration rates could mitigate the need to spend millions on bricks and mortar, if not now, certainly down the road.

It may or may not be Deakins' motivation, but advocates for criminal justice reform also say programs to reduce incarceration and recidivism are more humane and cost-effective.

Such discussions have gone on for years, not just in Washington County. They've been front and center in Benton County, too, where they also want to expand the jail.

It often seems county government is built to handle the bricks-and-mortar response far more easily than true criminal justice reform. It's sort of baked into how county government works. Also, the programmatic reformation approach involves policies and budgets well beyond the county. Developing what some view as more creative approaches to criminal justice has more moving parts than a Rube Goldberg machine (look it up, kids; he earned a Pulitzer).

If one judges, so to speak, how rapidly meaningful ideas for making the courts more effective and efficient come from those responsible for their operation, one might conclude the moving parts need a little WD-40. If they move at all, they move very, very slowly.

Be thankful every day if you don't know someone entangled in the slow-moving courts. If you do, be especially thankful if they somehow are among those who can stay out of jail as they await a conclusion to their case. Being jailed tends to mess up a lot of things in people's lives, such as relationships and holding a job. Even if charges are eventually dropped, a required stay in Hotel Jail is a incredibly disruptive. A stay that lingers for months and months, simply because the courts struggle with efficiency, should be an outcome everyone wants to avoid.

We're not talking about people who are clearly dangerous and will remain so if they're released. But there seems to be a somewhat universal level of agreement that components of the judicial system -- whether it's bail bonding, failure-to-appear circumstances or slow processing of evidence, among other challenges -- don't work as well as they could.

The self-appointed criminal justice reformers say our communities can't incarcerate their way out of their crime issues. It's probably true. It's also likely a community can fail in the prevention of crime if it cannot credibly threaten or follow through on the possibility of incarceration as certain punishment for criminal offenses. Finding the right balance is critical.

There's merit, we think, to the idea that incarceration is relied on too heavily, or that the inefficiencies of the judicial system result in unnecessarily long periods in jail for some people awaiting a final determination of their cases.

These issues exist beyond Washington and Benton counties and may seem, or actually be, much bigger than any one county can address. But the impacts are local, and it seems the leadership necessary to improve the situation are necessarily going to be local. It's hard to imagine anyone from elsewhere suddenly riding to the rescue.

Is the judicial system simply to big and complex for local leaders to improve? That's the message that sometimes seems to arise from all the talk.

But talk always has to come before action, and that's fair enough. What the people in Northwest Arkansas ultimately need is progress.

Whats the point?

Complexities, inertia of the judicial system seem to undermine the efforts to make it more efficient.