OPENPUBLICA · PUBLIC MEETING RECORD
Record of Proceedings

Criminal Justice Planning Council Meeting - Nov 17, 2025

Other Meetings (A-H) — Monday, November 17, 2025
BodyIndianapolis, Indiana
SessionOther Meetings (A-H)
DateMonday, November 17, 2025
StatusFILED
Video Record
0:00 / 49:50

Transcript — Verbatim
0:02

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

0:07

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

0:10

Let's start with uh our controller.

0:12

Controller Abby Hansen.

0:16

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

0:19

Kate Sweeney Bell, Marion County Clerk.

0:22

Sheriff Kerry Forrestall.

0:24

Ryan Mears, Marion County Prosecutor.

0:26

Chris Bailey, Chief IMPD.

0:29

Scott Hole, executive director, Mary County Committee Corrections.

0:33

Bailey Renchie, board counsel.

0:36

Well, thank you everybody for being here.

0:37

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

0:41

Have people had an opportunity to review the prior minutes.

0:45

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

0:50

Do I have a second?

0:52

Second.

0:54

We have a motion and a second.

0:56

Uh all in favor.

0:58

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

1:04

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.

1:21

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.

1:34

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.

1:57

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

2:02

All right.

2:05

All right, so Michael Paul Hart, District 20.

2:09

Different to me on this side, okay.

2:12

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

2:14

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

2:21

Okay.

2:24

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

2:27

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.

2:47

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

2:50

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?

2:58

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.

3:08

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

3:14

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.

3:31

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.

3:41

Right?

3:41

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.

3:52

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.

4:05

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?

4:13

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.

4:20

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

4:24

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

4:26

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.

4:33

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.

4:41

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.

4:52

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?

5:02

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

5:06

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.

5:14

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.

5:24

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?

5:31

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?

5:39

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?

5:46

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

5:51

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.

5:57

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.

6:15

So keep this into context on the council.

6:18

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

Discussion Breakdown — Share of Meeting
Public Safety█████████████████████████████████████████████52%
Mental Health Awareness████████████████████████████32%
Technology and Innovation██████████12%
Procedural███4%
Summary of Proceedings

Criminal Justice Planning Council Meeting - November 17, 2025

The Criminal Justice Planning Council convened to approve previous minutes, host District 20 Councilor Michael Paul Hart, and review presentations on behavioral health, policing, and detention statistics. Councilor Hart presented a "Smart Indy" initiative report aimed at improving data sharing between agencies, while County officials detailed mental health response programs and current detention challenges.

Consent Calendar

  • Minutes from the previous meeting were moved to approve, seconded, and passed unanimously by voice vote.

Public Comments & Testimony

  • Councilor Michael Paul Hart (District 20): Presented a report from a roundtable discussion convened to improve inter-agency information flow. He expressed full support for creating a "Smart Indy" approach to unify data and technology efforts across the city. He noted that previous efforts to propose a "General Orders Board" regarding data storage had been presented to the full council but did not pass, emphasizing the council's role in considering ideas even if they are not immediately adopted.
  • Prosecutor Ryan Mears: Expressed strong concern regarding the current inefficiency of duplicative video evidence storage across four or five different file shares, describing it as a "bad practice" that wastes taxpayer money. He advocated for the implementation of integrated digital evidence management systems to consolidate data and reduce costs. He noted the Prosecutor's Office is currently exploring AI grants (including one from Microsoft) to assist in digesting data from body camera footage.
  • Chief Chris Bailey (IMPD): Stressed the importance of merging data points across policing, EMS, and fire to correlate traffic crash data with crime data, noting that currently, these datasets are siloed. He highlighted the benefits of new technologies, including drones for rapid response to EMS/fire/mental health calls and AI-powered language translation on body cameras for languages like Haitian Creole. He emphasized the need for policy guardrails to ensure the integrity of AI-generated transcripts.
  • Director Scott Hall (Mary County Committee Corrections): Shared observations on the behavioral health unit's success during client supervision but expressed concern regarding the "breakdown" in the cycle where clients lose contact with providers immediately after their sentence ends and are not under the agency's supervision anymore.
  • Sheriff Kerry Forrestall: Expressed regret that the Sheriff's Office was not included in a previous roundtable roundtable, noting that the jail serves as the largest mental health hospital in the state and should remain a central part of such discussions. He noted that the Sheriff's Office has been actively transferring inmates to the Department of Corrections to reduce population but that the process has stalled, resulting in a backlog of 217 inmates with IDOC detainers.
  • Controller Abby Hansen: Confirmed that the Sheriff's Office has paid their outstanding bill, though it was processed via direct deposit rather than cash.

Discussion Items

  • Data Integration and Smart Indy: Councilor Hart detailed the creation of the "Smart Indy" organization to bypass political polarizations and focus on local solutions. Key discussion points included:
    • Video Evidence Storage: A consensus was reached that current storage methods are fragmented. Sheriff Forrestall and Prosecutor Mears agreed that consolidating video evidence into a single repository is a high priority for efficiency and cost savings.
    • Technology and AI: The meeting explored using AI for data synthesis and translation. Chief Bailey and Councilor Hart both expressed excitement for AI's potential to improve efficiency in processing body camera footage and translating languages, provided strict policy guardrails are established.
    • ALPR and Unified Technology: The need to unify License Plate Reader (ALPR) data and integrate dash camera feeds with existing systems was discussed as a way to provide a comprehensive view of public safety issues.
  • Behavioral Health and Mental Health Response:
    • Case Management: Claire Henderson and Kara Franklin from the Mary County Committee Corrections presented the Behavioral Health Unit's workflow. They explained that specialized caseloads are kept to 30-40 clients (compared to standard 50:1 ratios) to ensure intensive follow-up, including 24-hour wellness checks after placement and monthly contact standards.
    • Service Barriers: A significant barrier identified is the wait time for community providers, with some waiting 3-4 months for intake. The agency utilizes walk-in centers (Midtown Eskenazi, Adult and Child Center) to mitigate this decompensation risk.
    • Clinician Availability: Chief Bailey and Director Hall highlighted a severe shortage of clinicians, particularly those from minority communities who can relate to the 50% of crisis runs involving African American individuals. They urged for continued expansion of non-law enforcement crisis teams (MESA).
    • AIC Utilization: Director Hall noted that the Assessment and Intervention Center (AIC) in OPHS has only reached 30 beds of its 60-bed capacity due to perceived barriers, though utilization increased after removing security presence at the entrance and allowing smoking inside.
  • Detention Center Statistics: Major Shanklin Woods presented data for the Adult Detention Center:
    • Total inmates: 2,724 (2,123 males, 342 females, 27 youthful offenders).
    • Crisis capacity status: The facility is operating in "crisis mode" (over capacity).
    • IDOC Detainers: 217 inmates are waiting for acceptance by the Indiana Department of Corrections.
    • Charge breakdown: 1,153 inmates on felony charges, 171 on misdemeanors, with the remainder on other charges.
  • Year-End Summary Proposal: The Councilor proposed that all agencies prepare a five-minute statistical summary of their annual activities for the next meeting to better inform the public about direct community impact.

Key Outcomes

  • Minutes Approved: The minutes from the previous meeting were unanimously approved.
  • Strategic Alignment: The Council expressed strong consensus on the need to consolidate digital evidence storage and integrate data streams (ALPR, EMS, Fire, Police) to improve efficiency.
  • Proposal to Adjourn: A motion to adjourn was made and seconded, with the meeting concluding after a request for future statistical summaries from all agencies.
  • Next Steps:
    • Agencies agreed to prepare statistical summaries for the next meeting.
    • Councilor Hart committed to continuing the dialogue, specifically addressing the inclusion of the Sheriff's Office in future roundtable discussions.
    • The Sheriff's Office and Controller's Office confirmed the settlement of the overdue bill.

Meeting Transcript

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.

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