Terri Young-Moses was sentenced to prison in late January.
But nearly three months later, he was still in the Adult Detention Center in Indianapolis, waiting for the Indiana Department of Correction to pick him up — with no timeline for when that would happen.
“They haven't estimated anything — haven't even told me what time that I should be leaving, anything,” Young-Moses said in an interview on April 14. “I been dealing with this case for quite some time.”
While prisons are designed for long-term confinement, jails often are not. Young-Moses said there’s little to do — and little access to services like mental health care — leaving him and others to support each other.
“We’ve got to govern ourselves,” said Young-Moses, who was convicted in December for murder and other felonies.
Young-Moses is one of hundreds of people across Indiana who have already been sentenced to prison. Some were promised treatment programs upon arrival at a state facility.
But instead of boarding a transport bus within days, many spend months in county jails waiting for the Indiana Department of Correction to transfer them.
State data shows the number of people awaiting transfer to prison surged through 2024, peaking at nearly 2,000 in October of that year. Throughout 2025, the number fell below 1,200 during only one month. The Indiana Department of Correction said there were 960 inmates awaiting transfer as of early April.
The state pays counties $42 per day to hold someone after sentencing — less than half the $89.56 per day IDOC says it costs to house that same person in a state prison. Sheriffs across Indiana say the gap gives the state little financial reason to move people out of local jails, where overcrowding is worsening and where facilities aren't built for long-term incarceration.
A representative for IDOC Commissioner Lloyd Arnold declined WFYI's request for an interview for this story.
In a statement, the Indiana Department of Correction said that the agency arranges transfers as quickly as possible without sacrificing safety, and is “proud of the strides our team has made to reduce the amount of time inmates spend in county facilities awaiting transfer.” The department said the average wait from sentencing to transfer was 60 days in 2025 and has since dropped to a span of 30 to 45 days.
Gov. Mike Braun's office offered a similar response. “Governor Braun is committed to local law enforcement,” his office wrote in a statement. “That is why this issue has been tackled head-on, cutting wait times drastically over the last year and ensuring counties were reimbursed for housing inmates under past administrations.”
Sheriffs across Indiana say transfer times have improved in recent months. But many said the gains haven’t fully eased overcrowding as sentencing rates continue to outpace prison pick-ups in some counties.
“Even though [IDOC] may take 10 out every couple of weeks, they may be sentencing 15, 20. So that backlog just keeps happening,” said Tippecanoe County Sheriff Robert Goldsmith.
While Madison County Jail Commander Michelle Sumpter said that transports have started to speed up this year, she still has people waiting in the jail who were sentenced over 60 days ago. Sumpter, who has worked at the jail for 16 years, said that before transports became delayed for longer periods over the past two years, the average wait time was roughly 14 to 30 days.
Even though IDOC said transfer times are improving, Indiana’s correctional system remains under mounting pressure from rising prison populations and overcrowded jails. IDOC pointed to the demands of managing a growing prison population driven by tougher sentencing laws for crimes like fentanyl-related offenses, resisting law enforcement and false emergency reports.
Marion County Sheriff Kerry Forestal said IDOC has blamed longer delays on understaffing and budget shortfalls — the same problems his own agency faces. And the sentencing of people continues to outpace the transfer of them into the state system, he said.
“You're leaving them here,” Forestal said. “We can't close the doors here.”
An urgent problem
The capacity crunch at the Marion County jail has grown more urgent as the facility holds people detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, as the Trump administration rapidly increases immigration enforcement.
Just two weeks into this year, the jail reached its operating capacity of 2,400 people, prompting Forestal to announce it would no longer hold ICE detainees longer than 48 hours. While the facility has physical space for about 2,900 people, the Indianapolis City-County Council set a financial cap limiting the jail’s population to 2,400, Forestal said.
As of May 8, 240 people are at the center awaiting transport to an IDOC facility. People at the Marion County jail wait an average of 27 days, with some people staying up to 45 days, according to available data from the Marion County Sheriff’s Office.
“They need to get the people out of here,” Forestal said.
Rick Snyder, president of the Indianapolis Fraternal Order of Police, said in a statement earlier this year that IDOC needs to accelerate the transfer of people convicted of state crimes and for ICE to follow the 48-hour timeline.
“No offender rightly held for further legal proceedings should be released back into our Capital City simply because of dereliction of transfer responsibilities,” Snyder wrote.
In 2025, county sheriff offices reported the Indiana Department of Correction had run out of money to pay county jails for holding people sentenced to IDOC. The department owed at least 41 counties over $6 million, but IDOC resumed payments in the fall of 2025.
Steve Luce, executive director of the Indiana Sheriffs Association, said sheriffs and jail staff throughout the state are working to manage their populations and monitor the state’s growing prison population.
But even one extra person in a facility can be a huge undertaking, since jails are responsible for everything from food and shelter to education, law books and medical care.
“You're warehousing people — humans. That comes with a lot of risk management,” Luce said.
‘Shouldn't be our responsibility’
The backlog is straining county jails — stretching budgets, filling beds and forcing facilities built for short-term stays to hold people for months.
The financial math gives the state little reason to hurry. IDOC pays counties roughly half what it would cost to house the same person in a state prison.
“It's kind of a savings plan for them,” said Goldsmith, the Tippecanoe sheriff, about the nearly $48 difference the state won’t pay if a local jail holds the convicted person.
Madison County Jail Commander Michelle Sumpter said that while the jail’s capacity is 207 people, its average population last year was 270 people.
At any given time, she said, 30 to 50 of those people are waiting to be transferred to the Indiana Department of Correction — numbers that, if removed, would bring the jail much closer to its intended capacity.
Jails can transfer people to other facilities in the area, but doing so takes time and money — and Madison County still retains custody and must reimburse those jails for housing them.
“You are automatically in the negative,” she said.
Goldsmith said county jails are chronically understaffed and not built for long-term confinement — that's what state prisons are for.
"That shouldn't be our responsibility," he said.
The backlog also disrupts the treatment, job training and mental health care that judges and prosecutors built into plea agreements — programs people were supposed to start the moment they reached state custody.
“If the agreement's been between a prosecutor and a public defender that they're going to go for this period of time, and we want to get them this program, but then they sit here for another four months — it's hard to sell the next person that example of how they can make their life better, other than just housing them,” Marion County Sheriff Kerry Forestal said.
‘People are suffering’
In the 2026 legislative session, the bipartisan Senate Bill 252 would have required IDOC to transport sentenced people from the Marion County Adult Detention Center to a state prison every week. The bill failed. Sen. Aaron Freeman (R-Indianapolis), its author, said he introduced it to prompt swifter transfers.
The bill passed out of a committee chaired by Freeman, Corrections and Criminal Law. Next, it was reassigned to the Appropriations Committee, where it was not called for a hearing.
Freeman said Senate Bill 252 was meant to force a conversation — and he still hasn't gotten a straight answer from IDOC about why the transferring delays persist. He said he plans to return to the issue before the 2027 legislative session, when lawmakers will write the next two-year state budget.
“It's an important topic for me. It's one that I think needs to be addressed. I'm not to the point yet that I can tell you that I have an answer,” Freeman said.
For Terri Young-Moses, the wait finally ended with a transfer to the Indiana Department of Correction’s Reception Diagnostic Center, where new inmates are processed.
But after waiting 81 days for transfer, the toll was visible all around him, he said.
“I run across somebody, and they just burst out in tears. People are suffering mental breakdowns,” he said. “We helping each other cope.”
Farrah Anderson is an investigative health reporter with WFYI. You can follow her on X at @farrahsoa or contact her at fanderson@wfyi.org
