Members of the Justice Fiscal Advisory Committee meet at the Monroe County Courthouse Monday.
(Lucas González, WFIU/WTIU News)
The group drafting fiscal recommendations for a new Monroe County Jail says it’s considering ways to invest in social services to reduce the number of people entering the criminal justice system.
County council member Jennifer Crossley, who chaired the meeting, said there’s a sense of urgency when it comes to funding. That’s because the county has a limited amount of time to spend its remaining American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) dollars — one of the proposed funding sources for diversion initiatives.
Although discussions surrounding a new county jail have mainly been county-led, Crossley suggested county and Bloomington city officials consider financial options together.
“How do we work together where we all have our own financial obligations, but we also have our own financial pot of money?” Crossley said. “How do we bring those together, and how do we make this a big project in which we can fund these social service groups and organizations so that they can do the things to help less people go back in and cycle through our criminal justice system?”
Crossley said the county must identify how it plans to use its remaining ARPA funds by the end of 2024 and spend it by 2026. The county has about $26,000,000 left to spend.
Report highlights justice system’s weaknesses
A 2021 report to Monroe County from Eve Hill, one of the nation’s leading civil rights attorneys, gives the following recommendation for reducing jail overcrowding and unnecessary incarceration:
“(…) Monroe County must prioritize alternatives to incarceration (diversion) for violation of court-imposed requirements, for substance use violations, for detox, and for mental illness-related offenses. To the extent people cannot be diverted from criminal justice involvement, Monroe County must ensure that the jail operates as a pipeline into treatment, rather releasing people to the never-ending revolving door of crisis, relapse, and recidivism that destroys lives, families, communities, and County budgets.”
The committee’s diversion goals were informed in part by that report, which also includes a survey of community groups and organizations on the local criminal justice system, according to Crossley.
Survey results showed participants expressed the following:
The jail has shifted costs to inmates for supplies, programming, medication and treatment and its limited resources disparately negatively affect inmates with mental illness and Substance Abuse Disorder.
Despite growing evidence that mental illness and suicide are treatable health conditions and not character flaws or serious threats to public safety, the justice system continues to focus on punitive responses to these conditions.
The county has implicit structural barriers such as high market rents, limited public transportation and limited employment options.
Some groups and organizations work in silos.
At the time of the report, data showed between 75 and 80 percent of inmates suffered from mental illness or substance abuse disorders.
Linda Grove-Paul, vice president of Adult and Family Services at the nonprofit health system Centerstone said a common challenge for individuals with mental health or substance abuse disorders is that when police are called on them, there’s often nowhere else for them to go but jail.
That’s why, she said, the Stride Coalition — a group of public, private and nonprofit organizations in Monroe County — was formed five years ago. The group went on to create the Stride Center, a 24-hour downtown crisis diversion center to help people with mental health and substance abuse disorders.
“In Indiana, there has been zero funding for crisis services; that’s a big part of the reason why we have found ourselves in this situation,” Grove-Paul said. “If you have an alternative of a place to go (…) it really is a way to prevent people from having to get into the system to begin with.”
The county is looking to allocate money to several groups with goals and services that align with its diversion goals, including Centerstone and Courage to Change Sober Living, a nonprofit sober housing collective.
Residents oppose recommendation for larger jail
Some meeting attendees said they felt like the county’s diversion goals contradict its vision for a new county jail.
The current jail has an inmate bed capacity of a little under 300. Earlier this year, the county council recommended a new facility have no more than 400. That’s something attendee Josie Everett spoke out against.
“If you really want diversion, don’t build a bigger jail,” Everett said. “Why would we need anywhere near 400 beds if we’re making a commitment to divert more of the population out of jail? By building a new, bigger jail, your actions are supporting an increase in jail population, and it’s a direct contradiction to diversion.”
Attendee Sam Holderman expressed similar opposition to the council’s recommendation.
“It feels like you don’t have faith in your own diversion effort,” Holderman said. “It feels contradictory.”
There has also been some discussion at previous meetings about a possible “justice campus” that would co-locate a new jail with services like an inpatient mental health center. That idea is modeled after other jails the commissioners visited earlier this year.
