People who are being held in jail are properly referred to as being “in custody.” That’s a word that means a lot more than just being locked up. It means being in someone else’s care.

And, when it comes to health care, there have been far too many suggestions in recent years that people in the custody of the Erie County Holding Center were not getting the kind of attention they need. It was a situation that not only threatened the lives and well-being of those being held, many of them not convicted of any crime, it also threatened the taxpayers with expensive lawsuits and fines.

That’s why it is good news that the Erie County Legislature, at the urging of County Executive Chris Collins, has moved to put the county’s doctor—Health Commissioner Anthony J. BillittierIV— in charge of the health care provided to the inmates of the downtown holding center and the Erie County Correctional Facility in Alden.

Six inmates have died while in Erie County’s custody just since 2007. A wrongful death lawsuit is pending against the county in the case of a 54-year-old woman who suffered a stroke, and later died, after holding center personnel denied her her blood pressure medicine.

That has been more than enough, of course, to attract the attention of both the U. S. Justice Department and the New York State Commission of Correction. And more than enough to suggest that, under the direction of the Erie County Sheriff’s Department, medical care at the jails was not of the quality it needs to be.

In the past, members of Sheriff Timothy B. Howard’s staff have complained that the feds are out to get them, that inmates are quick to game the system and to take advantage of the fact that, while in custody, they can receive all kinds of expensive medical care and charge it to the taxpayers. But it is not necessary to deny a word of the sheriff’s complaints to still conclude that medical care is something that ought to be under the supervision of a doctor, not a cop.

It’s not like people who are locked up in jail have the option of walking into an emergency room or calling the family doctor. They are at the total mercy of jail guards, who, however dedicated and brave they may be, are not necessarily the best people to diagnose an ailment or refer inmates to needed care without a designated doctor providing oversight and guidance and shouldering the responsibility for the quality of care.

Collins deserves credit for finally moving to put in place a change that has been talked about for years, one that even the sheriff supports but that, somehow, never happened.

This isn’t about coddling criminals. This is about government fulfilling one of its most basic tasks, the humane care of people in its charge.