Well, welcome everybody at the criminal justice planning council meeting on November 17th of 2025.

Before we get started, I'd like everybody to take opportunity to introduce themselves.

Let's start with uh our controller.

Controller Abby Hansen.

Andrew Merkley, Director of the Office of Public Health and Safety.

Kate Sweeney Bell, Marion County Clerk.

Sheriff Kerry Forrestall.

Ryan Mears, Marion County Prosecutor.

Chris Bailey, Chief IMPD.

Scott Hole, executive director, Mary County Committee Corrections.

Bailey Renchie, board counsel.

Well, thank you everybody for being here.

The first thing is to uh approve the minutes from our last meeting.

Have people had an opportunity to review the prior minutes.

Yes, I move to approval of uh minutes from the last meeting.

Do I have a second?

Second.

We have a motion and a second.

Uh all in favor.

I the eyes have it, and we will uh approve the the the last uh group of minutes.

Uh last uh meeting, uh we had had uh some discussion about what was going on in in terms of mental health initiatives with the various agencies that are associated with the the planning council, and part of that conversation was I was fortunate enough to participate in a discussion that was led by uh counselor Hart.

Uh I know Chief Bailey was there, and I know uh Sheriff Forrestall, you had had conversations with Councilor Hart as as well about a couple of different uh issues as it pertains to to the criminal justice system and the criminal justice planning council.

And so I did want to extend an opportunity to counselor Hart uh to address this committee and then also just kind of share with us what we can do to better assist the work that you do on the council and make sure that there's a free flow of information that everybody's uh you know hopefully making well-informed decisions based on good information and what we can do as as a body to help supplement your understanding of what the various agencies do that are associated with with public safety.

And so if it's all right with everybody, I'd like to turn it over to uh counselor Hart here for a minute.

All right.

All right, so Michael Paul Hart, District 20.

Different to me on this side, okay.

I guess I know the protocol, that's the good part of it.

Um so I'll hand out some of these linking one just so I can reference something.

Okay.

Essentially, you'll see it obviously the big smart indie on the front of it.

And the purpose of me creating this uh organization that you'll see on it um as you go through it was to make sure that when I'm engaging folks in the community, uh, I don't want them to get thrown off by political persuasions or perspectives or things that they may be seeing both at a national or a state uh level.

Because here in the city, my belief is that you know it's what we do in the city is local.

It's about making Indianapolis a safer place, as you know, the primary discussion of what this body has, but it's also about making sure that the water's draining, right?

It's about making sure the trash is being taken out, it's about making sure that we're serving our homelessness community and and all these areas that are really just about making Indianapolis what I consider the smartest city in America.

And so there's a component of that through Smart Indy, and there's a component of utilizing technology, right?

I spent a lot of time, you know, I formed the AI Commission, uh, Councilor Boots is my counterpart with that, and we spent a lot of time looking and working with ISA and understanding what the realities are there, and we even saw some more realities through this round table discussion of I mean one prime example that sticks with me.

I don't think it's documented in here, but essentially it was sharing information from the 911 call center uh over to the prosecutors and the court's office, and it was coming in on a CD.

Right?

It was it's examples like that that we're looking for through just real conversations, both with leaders like yourself, but also with people in the community.

So we've hosted conversations on homelessness, and we we I'm a part of conversations with our streets to home initiatives, but all of this is ultimately to find data points that we can work on at the council.

Uh and the purpose of this conversation, while we had this round table of everything in front of you, was it wasn't, I mean, we were we were in the budgeting time, right?

It was July, so we were having a lot of conversations with the controller, but ultimately what I was looking for is I wanted these, I wanted to see everybody together.

What I see by everybody is is all the chiefs and the prosecutor.

We weren't singling out the sheriff by any means.

Hindsight probably would have made sense to have the sheriff there, but I think some of the folks that we were thinking about, that was more of a on the judicial side of the house.

But long story short, the the purpose of convening everybody at this round table was that I I wanted to hear from everybody at the same time.

Because what I do as a counselor a lot of the time is I'm listening to maybe prosecutor Mears or maybe Chief Bailey or you know, maybe uh Chief Malone, but it's it's one at a time.

And so what I really wanted to do in this and as was captured in this document was if the chief was giving a suggestion that I could turn over to the prosecutor and say, well, how does that impact you?

But I also wanted to look for things that were impacting multiple agencies at once.

So if we could make a shift at the council that could better improve the safety of Indianapolis, that's what I was seeking throughout this conversation.

And so ultimately the goal out of here was uh come up with proposals in front of the the city council, and we did that ultimately at the end of this discussion.

Uh, but it was also looking at what are things that are working, what are things that we should be keeping our our eye on on the council?

Uh that's one of the first things that you see in the in the finding section here, which is um the housing linked EMS um you know uh service, right?

And so it's it's things like this that I'll continue to bring to our public safety meetings and asking in our committee on the council, how is that going?

Are those things that we need to continue to look at budgeting for when we're talking through budget season?

Um, you know, it's the staffing, you know, that's you know, a conversation that we have all the time, all over the place.

Uh and it was you know something that I wanted to make sure if I'm putting out there for the public to read that they at least have a high-level understanding of what we're looking at, you know, what some of the uh I guess results of what we viewed as as the smart indie team because in this meeting uh I did have three members of my team.

So keep this into context on the council.

We are very slim on what you would maybe consider a legislative assistant.

Uh we have maybe three for 25 people, and you know, getting them out and doing things versus everything else they're trying to do for every counselor is very hard to do.

So that was another pro to Smart Indy is I was able to recruit honestly both parties of type of people to come and help who are in getting interested in civics of Indianapolis, and they were there taking notes and generating this report.

So this is you know generated by the people who are in there listening to that meeting.

Uh the general orders board, another thing that came up in that meeting, and you may have seen that it was something that we addressed in the council.

And you know, I take the position of we've got to have conversations, right?

That's my uh role as a counselor is to bring these conversations to committee and bring them to the full council.

And this was something that came up in this meeting where all the chiefs and the prosecutor were.

So that meant ultimately it was a very important thing for us to be talking about.

If that was we had a limited amount of time, and that was one of the topics, then it was important enough for me to bring a new idea to the council.

So we use that as an opportunity, and this is an opportunity to learn about that.

What some of those struggles and challenges were.

We discussed them over a proposal, ultimately that proposal didn't pass.

That is what it is, but that's the job of the council is to consider ideas, and if they move forward, they do.

If not, then that's just the way it goes.

Um of these other things that I think we still have opportunities to lean into.

Uh, as you can sit, you know, continue the report, you'll see this um kind of blurb on duplicative video evidence storage.

I mean, with my background in IT, this is a major opportunity for the city of Indianapolis.

You know, one of the key uh takeaways and and memories I have from this conversation is from prosecutor Mears saying, you know, um it's you know the the juries and the courts they want more data, right?

They want better tech streams, they want better video storage, and it takes time to get that information, and we've got this information floating to what my understanding is in four or five different places on four or five different file shares where no knowing what I know as a as a technology expert, that is a just bad practice.

So, you know, as I look at the controller, why isn't that a con and I'm not asking you now, but right?

But facetiously, why isn't that a conversation that we're having when we're looking at ISAs and their and their plans and their budgets going forward if we're talking about improving public safety, right?

And that's again, I have this in history now.

So that was another benefit and purpose of doing that is that these aren't things I'm gonna forget.

I might not always have you know the budgeting time, right?

There's seasons for that.

There's you know uh there's processes for work for for putting forth a proposal and you know, finding the money for things like this, that those things come up, but I do have them documented, so that was another value add.

Um kind of going up, just wrapping these up just to make sure it's I think there was some recommendations.

We did put on recommendations at the end of this.

Now now all of these didn't turn into proposals.

Uh some did, and and I think there's one we're still actually working on that's been tabled.

Um but these are things that are still on on the front of my mind that came from the leaders that were in that room today, which is you know, LPR coverage, um, unified technology, like we just talked about that.

But ultimately, that's that's the purpose of of what I'm trying to do is convene good ideas, and so um Chairman Mears, when you ask, you know, how can how can you guys help?

It's um I don't see our representative here, so that's uh you know a problem on our side because I know we have a uh a council member who should be here, um, and that's should be the best conduit to make that happen.

If that's not happening, you know, I'll gladly take those conversations back.

But it's you know, what are these topics?

I see, you know, mental health.

That's absolutely you know, something that we've got to have more conversations on.

But what what is the council need to know, right?

And because those are conversations I'll take to the public.

Um I've had a couple different other uh events where I've hosted one recently on housing, and it's not to be competitive with anything that the city's doing, right?

It's to bring people together who have ideas and learn about longer term strategies that we might not be talking about today.

Fully supportive of a lot of things that we're doing today, but uh I'm getting the ear of our folks from like Fairbanks School of Medicine that want to use their data scientists and their people to help us know know what they know, right?

The people from my board, the people from Baggy, right, who who traditionally um are in the background when we talk about housing, um, that is also a public safety concern, right?

Public safety for me is is equally traffic, like we talked about, right?

It's equal where I was out last night, right?

I was with 50 people last night uh walking up and down Raymond Street talking about pedestrian safety.

That is equally public safety.

And so when I think about you know, we're here at criminal justice, but it it it it all encompasses itself, and I'm always looking for good ideas because I've I I'm not afraid of taking that idea and putting it in front of the council.

And that's what I want to know from you guys, whether it's in this capacity or whether it's one-on-one with me, it's know that you know, if you want to go have a round table, if you want to have a one-on-one, if you want to put it in this kind of capacity, I'm happy to do that and bring the resources and put the thought behind it and additional people behind it to put ideas forward that we can actually create the smartest city in America.

So that's what I wanted to share with you all today, and you know, I was happy to take any questions if you have.

And and just one thing I'd I'd like to know is you know, I want to make sure you have access to good information, and and so you know, I think one of the things I'm gonna propose for the next meeting is is all of us kind of doing a year-end summary of kind of what we did over over the course of the last year.

But but what information could could we send to you directly from this body and our individual agencies that you think would be helpful, you know, for you as a counselor, because I mean there's we all have a ton of data, it's just how do we synthesize that information and then what are you willing to consume?

Yeah, to me, it's you know, you know, with the technology side, it's it's projects like what are your top tier priority and projects because that's something I can compare back to the rest of the council, right?

And that one I can easily articulate the value of.

Um other things, it's it's you know, pilots that you might be working on are things that that you're trying out now that you know I learned about the the EMS thing in here on a whim.

I would have had no idea that we were do that we were even doing that, right?

It hadn't come up in our committee.

It's not one of those things that just come up in conversation.

But if there's there's new ideas that you're trying, or if there's areas that you're struggling in, or if those are the things that I'm looking for to where we can start to use, you know, creative thought on our council to be supportive of any one of the agencies in this room.

I know I'm looking at you know director Hall.

I mean, there's you know, you know, what areas can we be supportive in?

I mean, we've we've had some of these like kind of hallway conversations, but um I want to get out of hallway conversation and into um I guess more of a strategic too much information is never too much, to be honest with you.

Uh I've got people behind me now that can help kind of get through some of this, and and we can flag and and bring those ideas forward.

So flood flood the gates is what I would say.

And one of the things I just just said to you, and you mentioned you you know the use of AI and uh we we uh uh we're fortunate enough to get a grant from Microsoft to to explore that possibility in terms of how we could better use AI and the prosecutor's office to help with some of the you know digesting some of that data that we receive uh from chief and his investigators and all the body camera footage and all of that things and all of those things, and so when we get a better handle on what we can do with with that information, we'd be happy to share that with you because that's kind of the new frontier is how can we utilize AI to make us more efficient.

Absolutely, and I'm excited about that stuff.

I actually have a you know, that's where my professional world and this world come together.

I actually have a meeting tomorrow with Raleigh, North Carolina about all of their you know, AI initiatives.

And I just spent two days in New Jersey talking about AI and public sector and the intersection of both.

So that's it's I mean, to your point, it's it's going to be the frontier.

We're going to have to use it, and it's not in a you know a surveillance type way, right?

But that's on me and and mine and the rest of the counselors to talk to our constituents about that, right?

We're we're front and center every day with these people, and we have to show them that we you know we've got to trust the technology and and see the results behind it.

So those are things I'm I'm tremendously excited for.

I'll just mention um you did notice the sheriff's office was not included.

I'm only here for another year.

But and for the history, I think it's an important.

We've got the largest mental health uh hospital, basically at the jail.

And I think for the point they leave the street when they rejoin the community through OPHS or go on state prison.

That's a big spot to that would be missed by making it a silo.

I just want to be sure.

I'd offer to be sure that we'd be included because we'd be happy to be included.

Absolutely, yeah.

And complete oversight on my part, right?

It's one of those retrospect things that you know should have done it.

And and it's not over, right?

This is just the beginning of the beginning.

We we keep having the conversations and improve on it.

Um, you know, and and and I'll we'll we'll be in touch and continue these conversations.

Great, thank you.

Anyone else?

Briefly, you mentioned a couple things that are pretty important uh to me as well, and I know the prosecutors and office will see the benefits of that.

So as we work through contract negotiations with our body worn camera vendor, I think there's an opportunity for us to get digital evidence management, which they all have access to that puts this digital evidence in one spot, not in the officer's hard drive, and then in a copy to the prosecutor's office, and then another copy to the defense, and then it's stored also on evidence.com because it came from this view, and then it's stored in uh Polaris because it came from Body War cameras.

So hopefully we get that fixed uh by the end of 2026.

Um you talked about ALPR and how to be more efficient if you're DPW.

There's an article out today uh about the ability to put certain technology, AI technology and cameras and buses, uh, but also one community is providing um actual dash cameras to their citizens to carry around, but the AA technology looks for potholes, looks for street lights are there out, looks for um uh guardrails that are damaged or missing so that that information comes back to DPW in a in a quicker way so that they can get that uh taken care of.

Uh AP ALPR continues to grow uh technology will allow in the near term, if not now, for all dash cameras to be up to be uh ALPR just simply by a software update.

Uh we have to we have to bring our data together uh in policing that but also utilize data points that are important, IEMS and fire and in other parts of the enterprise uh that overlap.

Um traffic crash data will correlate with crime data will correlate with high number of EMS runs and fire runs.

But right now we don't have that information in our fingertips.

There's programs right now, right now, right now, if we invested in, we could have all that informed merged into one place, one data data source right at this second, but we have to be willing to spend that time, money, and energy on the on those efforts so that we're smarter in our limited resources at the police department, especially.

And I know that our partners uh there feel the same same way.

Drones is first responders, drones' first responders, flock now has a drone that can fly 65 miles an hour and has a parachute and has a four-mile range.

One person can fly one or four of those from any place in the United States at any point.

Um getting to scenes of fire and EMS runs quicker, getting to mental health runs as we talk about what resources are needed, what information can be sent back to send the right resources uh to the right scene to mitigate any kind of negative encounters between law enforcement or public safety and someone uh in crisis.

Uh AI uh now uh with our potentially with our new body worn cameras will have language functions where it will translate some of the body worn cameras have them now will translate languages including Haitian Creole, which is one of our most our growing languages, but one of the most difficult to find translators for.

Right there, you can have a conversation with somebody between the body camera and the officer, and it's all recorded, so it can go back and be looked at by the prosecutor's office, defense and other people for translation.

It could be translated or are dictated by the time you get back to the car, the entire conversation, witness statements, victim statements, suspect statements, excited utterances, all those things are are available right now that we're not taking advantage of as an enterprise that we have to.

One, we need a policy, uh, and we need to put guardrails along along the technology.

Courts and prosecutors have to catch up on what does it mean for uh a report to be dictated and ready for the officer to sign off on by the time get back by the time they get back into the car.

What are those checks that need to uh be in place so we ensure that it it is the it is the voice of the victim, it is the voice of the officer, it is the voice of the witness and and not the the computer generating what they think they heard.

So that's available to us now, and all these things will save time and we'll eventually save money if we invest in them at the right time uh in the right companies moving forward.

So thank you for for taking that up.

I have a whole list of things to send you, and I brought a whole list of things that our department's doing and has been doing ahead of lots of agencies and not only state and this county, but across the country when it comes to mental health response uh and the success of these things have proven themselves over and over again.

And just to echo Chief's comments, I mean, I I sometimes feel like I'm in charge of a data management company as opposed to a prosecutor's office because of all the information that we receive.

How do we store it?

How do we you know disseminate it?

What what's our file retention policy?

What should all those things look like from an electronic side?

And then so I mean, I just I appreciate your interest in that topic, but I mean that's one of the biggest areas that we have because the the amount of data that we rely on and use to make our charging decisions and then you know ultimately engage in our prosecutions.

Uh the amount of digital evidence we receive seems to increase every single year, and the storage of that is incredibly costly.

And so to the extent that we can find synergies and ways to hopefully work together and have one program between the two of us, uh, we're not only simplify our day-to-day lives, but ultimately I think save the taxpayers a ton of money.

Uh so we're not both paying for these huge amounts of storage that we're currently paying for.

We have detectives that go out and buy their own terabyte drives in order to process, put information and give it to the prosecutor's office.

And then that terabyte drive becomes no longer useful because it has to be kept in evidence until it goes to court, and then that information is peeled off or is given to or copied then to a defense attorney for years.

There are programs that exist that create a case file every time an officer or detective is assigned a case, everything goes some of it automatically.

911 calls, CAD information, photos from the crime lab, photos from an evidence technician, all starts in this in this file.

The other things are dragged in there.

Video, body warm camera video automatically uploads in there.

And then the click of a button that all transfers to him.

And then from him, click of a button that transferred transfers to a defense attorney, all time stamped for when it was sent for discovery purposes.

All those things exist today.

They're not cheap, uh, but they exist right now.

Well, the public didn't know they were going to go lecture on data, but uh sorry.

I appreciate it.

Any other uh comments for the counselor?

Well, I sincerely appreciate you you're coming here and your interest in the topic.

And I mean, I want this body to be productive and be helpful and something that hopefully you see as a value add.

And so to the extent if there's topics you want us to cover or conversations that we can have that you think would aid in your ability to to make decisions on the council, please let us know, and you're always welcome here uh whenever you'd like.

So thank you for for appearing.

We appreciate it, and thank you for sharing the information.

My pleasure.

Thank you all.

Well, I was told Scott Hall has one of the best presentations anybody's ever done on mental health.

So I guess we'll start with uh Scott.

Um if it is, it's only because I'm not the one giving it.

Um but uh thank you, Mr.

Prosecutor.

Uh I do have uh Claire Henderson and Kara Franklin here from our behavioral health uh team, behavioral health unit.

I I won't belabor, I'll let them kind of present about what they do and and how we operate as an office, but um obviously this is just a kind of a small portion of of what we do, much like the the sheriff was discussing the jail being the largest mental health hospital, you know, in the state.

Although they specifically work with our uh mental health and behavioral health um clients, you know, we have individuals with mental illness on virtually every caseload, you know, within within our agency.

So um I I don't want anyone to get the impression that that these two are the only two working with that population, but these are the two kind of dedicated to it specifically along with a couple of other case managers, but it is um the the size of that issue uh stretches across our entire agency.

So with that, uh Claire and Kara.

Thank you.

Um so this will kind of give you just a brief summary of people that are mainly sentenced to community corrections specifically to um the behavioral health component and the behavioral health case managers.

So we'll kind of go over that.

So the goal of the behavioral health unit is um to best help and assist clients in being engaged with behavioral health community providers and case managers working cohesively with the providers to ensure that clients can complete their time with community corrections and then reintegrate um successfully and transition into the community.

Um, like Scott said, there's one case manager and team lead, which is Cara.

Um, and she works with uh the behavioral health component, and those are clients that have a more severe diagnosis.

There's also another case manager that manages clients that are ordered to be with just a behavioral health case manager, and those are clients with a less severe diagnosis.

Uh so the screening process for the behavioral health component is the clients could either be court ordered to be the behavioral health case manager or be placed on the behavioral health component.

If they're court-ordered to that, we have to follow the court order.

So we have some examples on there of what this sentencing order would look like where you could just see that it says placed a mental health component due to the mental health diagnosis.

Then the other one, if there's not an active diagnosis or something like that, the judge can order them to be screened to determine if they're appropriate for the behavioral health component, in which case, then they would go to the screening and they would the client would be interviewed generally while they're still incarcerated in jail.

Information and documentations would be gathered to determine that once all of that stuff is determined, we would memo the court generally within seven days.

Sometimes it's a little longer if we're waiting to get the interview or responses from providers, and then the judge will make a determination based off that information if they're appropriate for the behavioral health component, even if all of that documentation and stuff, and there's no medical uh looking for medical thoughts that would say to indicate the behavioral health component.

If the judge says no, yes, we're putting them as the behavioral health component, we have to comply either way.

So this is an example of the behavioral health screener.

If we were to go screen them while they're in custody in that memo, it will have their history if they've been on community corrections before, um, their mental health history, so we'd reach out to providers, reach out to the jail and see if they're getting their medications, if they're compliant with that, and then from the personal interview at the bottom, that would indicate if they have somewhere that they'd be able to live, stable housing.

So if they were to be released, um, where they'd be staying at.

So some frequently asked questions we get about the behavioral health unit is where the common diagnosis is to differentiate kind of between the two placements.

So for the behavioral health component, it's kind of the more severe psychotic disorders, bipolar disorders, major depression with psychotic symptoms, and then schizo schizoaffective disorder.

Um, the behavioral case manager, equally as important, but generally less is the anxiety and the depression, and then just to note that just because a client is court-ordered to a mental health evaluation or mental health treatment, does not automatically put them on the spectrum for a behavioral health unit case worker.

So here's an example of a sentencing order for clients if they were to be placed with just the behavioral health case manager.

Um, you'll see within that it has the mental health community corrections officer.

So that's what that would look like.

And if it's for the behavioral health component, if they were to be court-ordered to it, but not even just have the screening, the judge just deemed that they are placed on the component, it would have under conditions, it shows the home detention with GPS and the mental health component.

So when we're preparing clients to be released with uh from community corrections when they're coming from the behavioral health team, um if a client is ordered to be on the behavioral health, then we will work with the clients to ensure we are aware of behavioral health status, medication compliance, viable addresses, stable housing, phone numbers, and any other relevant information.

Um a client may be replaced, I'm sorry, released or placed on the behavioral health unit without prior notification.

This isn't ideal, but we do our best to gather all the information and meet you know as soon as the hookup is possible to get things rolling and make sure that they're getting all the things that they need.

Um so after the client is hooked up and has gone through processing and is on community corrections, uh, the behavioral health unit will follow up with them within 24 hours, and that's to ensure that the client is linked to a provider, has their medications, and then we review their contact information to make sure that we're able to contact them and they have stable housing.

Um, the contact standards will do that 24-hour, essentially, like just checking a wellness check, and then after that, the first office visit happens within the first five days after hookup, and then they'll have a failed visit within the first 30 days of being on the program, and that's to ensure their housing.

And if our failed team goes out and sees any issues with their housing, um, the case manager is able to meet with the client and talk to them about those on an aid basis, and then they'll also just do a well-being check with them, the client to make sure they're taking their medications, they're engaged with services, um, and that's once a month that's outside of just their office visit and meeting those contact standards.

And the behavioral health unit also has a list of head contacts that community providers.

So if a client is not engaged, um, those case managers will reach out to the client and provide them with that list to get them engaged with those services.

Um, and then once a client is engaged with those services, we have to have that release of information on file to get the treatment plans and updates on the client and their engagement with those services.

And then a lot of times HIPAA laws can be difficult in with the providers releasing that to us.

So even if we reach out, it doesn't necessarily mean we get them back from the providers.

So we'll have to have the client a lot of the time get a paper copy to bring to us so we can see how they're doing with those services.

And then if possible, sometimes we'll meet with the client and the community providers to work together cohesively so they know that we're all on the same track to make sure that they're successful.

And then when one of our behavioral health clients is ready to be released and they have probation to follow, the case managers begin discharge planning about 30 days prior to release.

We'll have them sign the release of information to fish air vital information with probation.

We try to share their behavioral health history, providers, diagnosis, medication compliance, housing, any type of issues that they're having as far as housing, food, and meeting their needs.

We forward this to the appropriate probation officer to try to streamline the process and make it run smoother.

And then we also try to put uh notify all the providers of the change to probation and make sure they have the contact information.

Um if they're uh preparing for release without probation, um, then we begin discharging a little bit earlier, about 60 days prior to release.

Um this includes information for housing, medication, um, ongoing continued treatment and other resources that the client can uh may need after release, and then 30 days um from release, we kind of review this discharge plan again to make sure nothing's changed, no need uh new need new needs have um come about.

Um, and then when the client is released, we release them with the community providers and resources, crisis line phone numbers, and how to handle a crisis if one were to arise.

That wraps up us.

I don't know if you guys have any questions or anything.

Director Hall, do you have anything to add before we turn over to questions?

Um just a couple quick notes on this.

One is um you know, we work very closely with mental health court with Judge Jones, um, and and she's a very good partner with us on this and and these shared clients.

Um the other thing I I want to kind of make a note it's an important the the piece that that Claire and and Kara talked about at the end that that discharge piece.

We they do an excellent job of working with our clients to make sure their needs are being met, they're they're following through with medication and and services while they're with us, but then when they finish that sentence, and if they're not going to probation specifically, um now they're they're outside of you know, they're not calling us.

We're not calling them to make sure are you still taking your medication, are you still seeing your treatment provider?

And and that's where that cycle happens.

And so, you know, many of the clients that we have there, you know, this isn't the first time they've been with us, and we've all seen that in each of our respective roles, those individuals.

So that's that's where that breakdown occurs is after you know, we can we do a really good job of making sure that they get their services while they're with us, but after that that sentence ends, um you know, then we have to hope that they have progressed to a point where they will maintain you know the their medication and treatment.

So I've got a couple of questions.

What's the ratio with with people who are in the behavioral health component in terms of number of individuals you see to case manager, and then same question for people who are assigned to a behavioral health case manager?

What do those ratios look like?

Are you asking like caseload size?

Yes.

Uh, it's like we try to keep it between 30 to 40 just because you're working more intensively with those clients and having those different contacts compared to a standard caseload.

However, like Scott said, these are people that are um court-ordered to the behavioral health case manager or the behavioral health component, but there's still people that are on the standard caseload that have the mental health evaluation and treatment.

So they still have the behavioral health aspect of it.

Um, so if there is somebody that's on a standard caseload but still has the mental health evaluation and treatment, and that case managers having issues with the client, we'll transfer that client to work with us so that we see that they need more severe and intensive case management.

And you talked about the community health partners.

Who who are some of the agencies that you work with?

So uh most of our clients will have work with um Midtown Eskenazi at 1700 North Illinois just because they have walk-in hours that are Monday through Friday from 8 a.m.

to noon to be seen compared to if someone were to get released, say, and they try to schedule an appointment somewhere else.

That could the appointment could be two weeks out.

We don't want them two weeks to not have any services.

So it's best and quickest to get people in at that location.

Okay.

To add to that, um, adult and child, um, and then um, I believe Hamilton Center are starting to open up some walk-in hours as well to um to to assist with the clientele coming in and not having that long wait.

But we are seeing like three to four month wait periods at other places before they can even get their initial intake office.

Yeah, that's consistent with what I've experienced with the couple of individuals trying to get them in to be seen.

Especially when they're on home detention when it's three or four months without treatment or anything, it's easy for them to decompensate.

Right.

We don't want that.

So that's why we try to refer them somewhere with a walk-in appointment to get them in as soon as possible.

Okay.

Anyone else any questions?

I have one, and this will show you how ignorant I am.

Um hooked up, is that mean when they get the bracelet?

Yes, sorry.

That's it.

Maybe just context um when we're talking about caseload size, just so you have something to compare that to.

Our standard caseloads right now are about 50 to one.

Um, so these specialized caseloads we try to keep obviously not quite half of that, but but significantly lower to uh allow for that more intensive services.

Well, and I'll agree with your earlier statement.

You guys did a much better job than he would have done.

So thank you very much.

Chief Bailey.

Uh just want me to randomly say something or ask about this.

If it's related to mental health, I think most helpful.

Uh just one last question before you go.

The walk do you ever send people to the AIC for those type of things since there's a open yes.

Okay, thank you.

Uh briefly, just can I talk about I don't have any more questions?

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Uh what IMPD does and have has been doing for some time.

So all IMPD officers receive mental health training and crisis response training during their initial um academy training, which is 28 weeks.

Um then ongoing incumbent training, and we talk about it at our in-service trainings every uh single year.

Uh we also have our crisis intervention team that's been around since almost uh since 2000 that I know of.

I was one of the first persons uh on our agency to participate in that that's specially trained officers uh that know how to to recognize and uh mitigate issues related to uh mental health.

Of course, we have our mobile crisis assistance team or MCAT.

They average about 3,500 to 4,000 emergency detention follow-ups along with now over the last couple years responding to real-time uh runs in partnership with the with Mesa.

Uh we also speaking of Mesa have a Mesa working group.

If you've called 911 anytime recently, you know that it's not just uh police or fire emergency, it's now police fire or just a mental health uh emergency.

That allows for the person on the other end of the line to change, I think they're thinking a little bit, and also the dispatchers and control operators ask a few more questions to know where to uh push that car uh call.

Um recently IFD, Mesa, and IEMS have started uh some work with uh some new vendors to send medal medical runs to um uh a nurse over on the phone or something like that to try to divert uh fire and EMS uh personnel from being dispatched to the scene.

Uh in my talks with Dr.

O'Donnell, they'd like to see more mental health calls go to that.

And of course, we have to talk about 988 more rather than 911 to send people away from that system all together because most of these things can be handled with a conversation.

How do I get my medicine?

Where do I go?

How do you deal with somebody in this situation rather than having someone who's although we had training not trained to the level that most people need uh when they when they're in crisis, and then our CLCR partnership that's expanding uh this year to five of the IM of the six IMPD districts, hopefully that we're in all of them by the time we get through 26 or 27 in our IMPD homeless uh coordination unit who works with uh CHIP and other providers to uh be in the areas where unhoused uh persons are uh to offer them assistance and help where they can in real time, and then announced last year's as our unified response with IMPD, IFD and IMS who uh based on the run type, the the the uh priority of it, whether it's uh there's an ongoing threat rather than IEMS and fire staging down the street, we will come together, we will establish a plan, we'll decide who who the lead is in talking with the individuals in there, and then the rest of the people will back up and become support rather than the leads in that uh particular situation.

Uh thank you, Chief.

I appreciate it and I appreciate all the energy and effort you put into really trying to develop and expand and build out the the mental health responses that in our community.

You know, you always hear about people talking about clinician-led responses.

I I guess a two-part question for you.

Number one, should those clinicians work for IMPD or should they be with a different agency?

Number one, should those clinicians work for IMPD or should they be with a different agency, and also if you could just talk about the the challenges of identifying and finding clinicians who are qualified to respond to to these types of runs.

Well, I I always think that it's that uh you know, I policing generally is always fighting the battle of legitimacy and trust.

Uh and so I think finding uh partners in the community to do those things outside of the police department, but in partnership with the police department, uh, seem to work best.

Uh I've seen it both ways.

I've seen departments that have full-time social workers and other other clinicians that work for the agency.

Um, but I really do think uh private partners working in conjunction with public partners is is the best path forward to give legitimacy and for people to trust the system uh outside of law enforcement, and frankly, we want to be out of the business as much as possible.

Law enforcement does not always gonna be out of it, but um certainly uh want to be.

Yes, there is a there is a uh we have a clinician problem, uh number of clinicians uh that we need to deal with the the the which seems to be insurmountable caseloads.

You heard I mean, even as a director tries to lower the caseloads there, there's too much work and not enough people.

Uh, and then where we see this more acutely is those in the minority community.

There aren't enough clinicians that look like you know, 50% of the people that we deal with in crisis, even though it doesn't African Americans represent 27, 28 percent of our county.

We still encounter people in crisis at the high level, almost 50 percent of those runs.

Uh and clinicians don't look like those those individuals, and that that is a barrier for some for some in our community.

So it is problematic.

I know that other the that people are working on that, and universities are working on that, and and and and looking at ways we can do that, but it is a is an issue.

Thank you, Chief.

I I appreciate any other questions from Chief Bailey.

All right, sheriff.

I I think we're gonna get you next time.

Is that correct?

Anybody else have anything else they'd like to present on mental health?

Okay, just looking at you.

I did not come with a full presentation.

I think um, you know, we OPHS is very invested in behavioral health.

We now uh our newest division is the division of behavioral health, and we have we oversee the assessment and intervention center, so 60 beds for individuals suffering from substance use and uh behavioral health challenges.

Um historically, the 60 beds have not been utilized, and we understand that there's a lot of challenges with individuals wanting to go into that facility um barriers because of uh XYZ, but we have taken a lot of or we've made a lot of efforts to reduce some of those barriers.

We've we've moved our security team back away from the front door so that they're not right there when someone comes in, uh, which can be a barrier.

Uh we're changing some of the programming at the facility, and uh we also no longer require folks to give up their cigarettes and things that you know you need if you're suffering from substance use challenges.

So that has increased the number of folks that are that are using the facility, but we still have not ever gone beyond 30 beds, and um, and so we are now planning to use uh half of the facility for winter contingency, which we did last year.

We'll do that again this year.

And we saw um almost a hundred percent occupancy last winter throughout the winter.

So I think I hope that that happens again this winter.

And um hopefully we can have more of those individuals who likely are experiencing substance use or behavioral health challenges enter into the services that the AIC offers.

Uh and then we also have the clinician-led community response teams uh that chief mentioned.

Um that is the non-law enforcement response that that we uh at the county have city county have.

Um they've they are we plan to expand citywide at some point in 2026, so we'll be able to provide those services across the county.

Uh we just expanded to the Southeast East District.

Um we're working with Lawrence, um, the City of Lawrence, the City of Beach Grove, and um I'm gonna forget the third one, Speedway, I believe, to make sure that we are going to be in those communities because we were not accessing their uh call system.

So whenever their call would come into those 911 systems, we weren't being uh dispatched.

So hopefully we'll we'll fix that challenge.

Um and then as we focus on our unsheltered population downtown, we'll be uh working with CLCR and our partners to engage the homeless population and and uh make sure that they have the services they need.

Wonderful.

Yeah.

Uh controller, anything?

Madam Clerk, do you have anything?

No, sir.

Okay.

Uh with that, we can turn it over to the Marion County Sheriff's Office, Jill in that count.

Good afternoon.

I am Major Shanklin Woods.

I'll be presenting the adult detention center numbers for today as of 9 a.m.

Uh chart one is the total number of inmates in custody within the adult detention center as of today.

The graph additionally provides the capacity level in the crisis mode, which is 80% of the capacity rating.

Um we have 2,123 males, 342 females, and a total of 27 youthful offenders.

That is placing us over the crisis capacity mode with a total of 493s today.

Graph two shows the total number of inmates within the ADC from January 15, 2022 through today.

The graph demonstrates the MA population as seen against the capacity level and the crisis mode rating.

Chart three shows the effect of the HEA 1006 on the ADC M8 population from January 15, 2022 through today.

The graph demonstrated the combined comparison of the ADC population and the effect of the HEA 1006 MA population seen against the capacity level and the crisis mode rating.

There's been a uh we've got nine um on the MA count.

Our 90 day average is 10.

Chart 4 showed the total number of inmates within the ADC today with detainers for the Indiana Department of Corrections and Parole.

We have 217 waiting for acceptance, the IDLC and 60 with parole holds.

And then the last chart shows the Mate population and shows by uh the count of lead charge levels.

The list then provides a view of the charge level counts to demonstrate it with the percentage based off today's population.

Others applied as a federal inmate and or an undefined charge level at the time of this recording with 142 with murder charges, 102 with felony one, 135 felony two, 290, felony three, 293, felony 4, 660, felony 5, 512 felony 6, um 77.

I'm sorry, listed as felony other, um 171 with misdemeanors, and 123 listed as other and that's all I have for you.

Thank you very much.

Any questions?

Well, I definitely appreciate that.

Uh sheriff, are they doing a better job of picking people up, taking them to the department of correction?

They did it for uh about a week and a half, and then it felt like it was accomplishment and they had taken too many.

I'm I'm guessing they gotta get back to their so it's kind of broken record for me to say.

So it was it was some hope for a little while, brought that number down.

So it's probably today 130 or something like that.

It is I think she said 217.

Seemed like a big number.

Yeah, 217.

Okay.

Because it goes up pretty quick.

It is well thank they thank you very much.

Before we adjourn.

Can I say they did pay their bill?

Well, good.

The controller is probably the line of the colour.

I didn't see it, but the controller got it.

Okay, good.

Do you cash that check?

Yeah.

Okay, good.

Direct deposit.

There we go.

Um before we adjourn, is as we kind of do the you know, move into to the new year.

One of the things I think it would be great if if all of our respective agencies could do maybe a five-minute summary, just kind of talk about statistically what we did, the number of people that I mean the clerk's office does a ton of work every single year, uh, and just kind of quantify to the public and let the public know we exactly what we've been doing over over the course of the last year, and would like everybody to be able to share that information.

I know everybody in this room touches a number of people, and I think it's worth noting the direct impact that we have on so many people in our community through the different agencies and programs.

And uh I'd like to share that information with the public so the public has a better sense of of what we actually do uh day in and day out.

And uh I think I'm gonna invite the media and sell it as a debate on criminal justice between me and Chief Bailey, and I think we'll get uh nice nice attendance from everybody.

Yeah, we will.

But uh would would would love to to be able to to do that for uh the next meeting.

Uh with that, I'd entertain a motion to adjourn.

I move to adjourn.

Second.

There we go.

So move.

Thank you, everybody.

Thank you.