Mount Joy Borough police Chief John O'Connell doesn't want his cops sitting in the police station doing paperwork or baby-sitting prisoners.

He wants them on the street, protecting the public.

But if one of O'Connell's officers makes an arrest that requires an arraignment in the middle of the night, that officer is stuck in the office, taking fingerprints and mug shots and filling out police affidavits. Then the officer has to drive the prisoner to the on-call district judge's office and participate in the arraignment.

If Lancaster County had a centralized booking/arraignment center in the Lancaster city police station, however, an arresting officer could just fill out a minimal amount of paperwork, drive to the city and drop off the prisoner before returning to duty.

"There's no question it would streamline things," O'Connell told a gathering of about 40 local and regional law enforcement officials Wednesday morning during Lancaster County's first-ever crime summit.

Held at the county's public safety training center in East Hempfield Township, the summit opened Wednesday and runs through Friday.

One of the goals of the summit, which was organized by the county commissioners, is to find ways the county can invest tax dollars to reduce crime and to equip law enforcement officials with the tools they need to fight crime.

Establishing a central booking/arraignment location for the entire county was one topic that summit participants tackled Wednesday.

According to city police Capt. Donald Palmer, the city police station has all the equipment necessary to be a central booking/arraignment center — electronic fingerprinting and photography machines, a dozen holding cells and videoconferencing cameras and monitors.

Newspaper records indicate that when the $14.2 million police station at Prince and Chestnut streets was built in 2003, former mayor Charlie Smithgall wanted it to be set up as a central booking/arraignment facility.

"It is custom-designed for central booking," Palmer said.

About half the county's municipal police departments and district judges use it as such now, Palmer said.

But Mayor Rick Gray has balked at the idea of making the station available to the entire county.

"It's no big philosophical thing," he said in a telephone interview Wednesday. "It's a question of dollars and cents. I don't think city residents should be the only ones paying for something the whole county is going to use.

"I would expect those who use it to share in the costs."

Gray was unable to estimate those costs. Currently, the city pays all the expenses associated with the facility.

Gray said he has talked over the past year with President Judge Louis J. Farina and the three county commissioners about having the city police station designated as the county's central booking/arraignment facility.

When he raised the issue about helping the city pay its costs for equipment maintenance and staffing, he said Farina suggested a $100 fee for fingerprinting be added to a defendant's court costs.

Gray didn't like that idea because some defendants might only be brought in for arraignment, as opposed to booking, which means fingerprints would have been collected somewhere else.

"So we'd get no reimbursement for that guy," Gray said.

Also, he said, just because the court orders a defendant to pay a fee doesn't mean that person will pay it, or the defendant could be found not guilty in court or the charges brought against that person could be dropped.

In each case, the city wouldn't see a dime, Gray said.

So he made a counteroffer suggesting the county pay the city $100 for each person brought through the center and the county then could do whatever it has to to recoup that money.

"That idea didn't go over too well," Gray said.

The mayor said he has no problem opening up the city's facilities for countywide use, as long as financial assistance is provided.

The commissioners said they plan to explore funding solutions.

E-mail: preilly@lnpnews.com