Members of the Community Justice Response Committee at the Monroe County Courthouse on Monday, March 20, 2023. (Lucas Gonzalez, WFIU/WTIU News)
Monroe County commissioners have for the first time shared their findings from tours they took of various corrections facilities in Arizona earlier this year.
It was the outcome long-awaited by other members of the Community Justice Response Committee, the group of elected officials discussing plans for a new county jail.
The commissioners’ presentation Monday followed months of heated discussions between committee members. Many have criticized the commissioners for not including their counterparts on their January research trip.
However, Monday’s discussions were far more subdued than recent ones, at which arguments and personal squabbles have been front and center.
Commissioners summarized their visits at facilities in three different locations in Arizona: Maricopa, Pima and Yavapai counties. The county seats are Phoenix, Tucson and Prescott, Ariz., respectively.
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The highlight of the three facilities — and the impetus for the Arizona trip, according to Commissioner Penny Githens — was the one in Pima County: a mental health clinic run by Connections Health Solutions, a private health care company.
The Pima County website describes the center as a 24/7 walk-in psychiatric urgent care which anyone may access regardless of their ability to pay. It offers medical treatment and substance abuse services.
The crisis response center connects directly to a medical center and is co-located on the same campus as an inpatient mental health center. The campus is separate from the county jail.
“I just felt like it was a very, very different approach and something that, again, I would like to see us move toward because I think it does work to the care and not cages that we are all seeking,” Githens said, referring to the local advocacy group Care Not Cages, which opposes building a new jail.
Githens said police officers can take an individual to the crisis response center, and generally they’re in and out within five to 10 minutes. Once a person is seen there, they may be referred to the nearby medical center.
Commissioners said there is a regional behavioral health authority in Arizona which oversees funding for the facility, something that doesn’t exist locally.
That led other committee members, such as Monroe Circuit Court Judge Catherine Stafford, to question whether a similar facility would even be possible.
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“I think everyone here at the table would love to see a facility like this — or I’m just going to pretend that we would for a moment; I know I would — but how can we take the next step in planning if we don’t know if we can pay for something like this, which would be, I think, much more expensive than a jail? Not that it’s not worth it, but are the dollars there?”
Githens said county leaders might have to look toward support from the state and federal governments. She added that, in Pima County, a great deal of funding that would have normally gone toward the jail was saved because fewer individuals were incarcerated. She pondered whether there might be a similar effect with the courts.
Githens did not argue with the point that such a facility would be costly, however. She also did not have direct answers to Stafford’s questions.
County council member Peter Iverson agreed such a facility would be expensive. He mentioned two bills working their way through the state legislature House Bill 1006 and Senate Bill 1. If passed, they would create funding mechanisms to expand mental health services in Indiana — but not nearly enough for Monroe County to replicate what has been done in Arizona, Iverson said.
The county would have to consider not only the cost of construction, but of operating the facility — something Iverson said Monroe County could not sustain unless it had outside funding.
Commissioners still target of public criticism
Despite the overall restrained nature of Monday’s meeting, members of the public still sharply criticized the commissioners for their behavior at previous committee meetings.
The first to speak during the public comment period was Maqubè Reese, president of the Monroe County NAACP. She voiced a concern similar to that expressed by City Clerk Nicole Bolden at the last committee meeting: that the commissioners have been especially disrespectful of Monroe County Sheriff Ruben Marté and County council member Jennifer Crossley, the only two Black members of the committee.
“These individuals deal with enough outside of this space simply because of the color of their skin,” Reese said. “The very public display is deplorable behavior, including rude tone and comments, microaggressions, dismissive body language and gaslighting by commissioners Penny Githens and Lee Jones.”
Reese also called on other members of the committee to speak up when they witness such behavior.
“If you do not speak up, you are complicit, which can do just as much harm,” she said. “If you are seeking to say something, please say something and speak up.”
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Also present was Seth Mutchler, a Bloomington resident and member of Care Not Cages. He expressed disappointment that commissioners have not collected public input on the three architecture firms being considered to design and build a new jail.
On Wednesday, commissioners are likely to vote on a recommendation to select the firm DLZ. The recommendation to choose DLZ came at the commissioners’ March 8 meeting.
Each of the three firms under consideration — DLZ, Elevatus and RQAW — prepared presentations outlining their qualifications to plan and design a new county jail. Mutchler took issue with the fact that members of the public have not been given the chance to weigh in.
He called on the commissioners to delay their vote on a design firm until both members of the public and other public officials have shared their input.
Meanwhile, the committee has yet to decide on whether it should split into subgroups, a topic of conversation at its last meeting earlier this month.
Githens said any progress toward that end is stalled, at least for now.
