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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowIndianapolis Mayor Joe Hogsett unveiled a $166.5 million anti-violence plan at a City-County Council meeting Monday evening, on top of a billion-dollar operating budget proposal that also focuses heavily on public safety.
“In addition to the 2022 budget, I am also introducing a comprehensive financial package that leverages the full strength of the American Rescue Plan to invest more than $400 million in a once-in-a-generation program, including the single-largest commitment to IMPD and community-based public safety efforts in our city’s 200-year history,” Hogsett said.
The three-year anti-violence plan would largely be funded with $150 million in federal dollars, more than a third of the $419 million the city will receive in federal coronavirus relief.
The anti-violence plan gives $33 million to traditional law enforcement efforts, $82 million toward community-led programming and $51.5 million toward “root cause” services like mental health care, hunger relief and workforce development.
The Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department would spend nearly $20 million to fund 100 new police officer positions, plus another $4.5 million on 22 new civilian Public Safety Officer Unit positions, which handle non-emergency situations.
An additional $9 million on technology would go toward new software, a virtual training program, district-based data centers, transcription software, license plate readers and a gunshot detection pilot project planned for a 4- to 5-square-mile area, according to IMPD Assistant Chief Chris Bailey.
In addition, the mayor’s plan calls for the city to spend $37 million over three years on violence intervention, including the expansion of a peacemaker program. A community grant program would get $15 million annually for three years.
The last $50 million would go toward battling what the mayor calls the”root causes” of crime, including mental illness, hunger and unemployment. The money would paid for mental health services in schools, for the Juvenile Detention Center and for high-risk homeless people, as well as an overdose treatment center, a dropout recovery high school and support for youth sports and mentorship through the Police Athletic League.
Not all of the public safety spending will be done with federal coronavirus relief dollars. The city proposed using local dollars to fund legal services for children, a bump for the Coroner’s Office and a new case management system for the Prosecutor’s Office.
And, there’ll be some savings. For the first time since 1996, Indianapolis won’t have a private company operating any of its jails, Hogsett said. That takes an annual $20 million out of the Sheriff’s Office budget, though some of the money would go back toward staffing costs, according to Controller Ken Clark.
Here’s the city’s breakdown of the proposed $166.5 million plan and its costs over three years:
- Traditional law enforcement: $33 million
- 100 new officers: $19.5 million
- 22 new civilian public safety officers: $4.5 million
- Technology: $9 million
- Community investments: $82 million
- Group violence intervention programming, including an expansion from 6 to 50 peacemakers: $37 million
- Anti-violence community grants: $45 million
- Domestic violence: $250,000
- Root causes: $51.5 million
- Mental health: $30 million
- Hunger: $6 million
- Workforce development training: $5 million
- Assessment and Intervention Center expansion: $3 million
- Reentry: $5.5 million
- Police Athletic League: $2 million
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Another failed plan and government boondoggle. Just keep throwing money at it clown Boss Hogsett. Can’t even fix potholes…
I need to start a “peacemaker” LLC or 503(c). 🤡
Ding, ding, ding! Nailed it, J C B.
Leave it to a leftist Dem to throw other people’s money at problems that could be resolved by arresting the bad guys and putting them in prison. Sadly Marion County’s prosecutor doesn’t want to do his job.
The United States has the highest percentage of our population jailed than any other nation on Earth, by far. Obviously, throwing more people in jail is not an actual answer. If you wanted to invest money in jails, we should be investing in programs that prevent people from getting arrested again after being released. Perhaps instead of just writing people off as a society, we should give them a chance to get a job after commiting a crime. Maybe get them therapy to prevent them from getting arrested again. It’s very clear that something needs to change in our criminal justice system aside from locking more people up.
Wesley – the cause is we live in the most degenerate society in the world.
Meanwhile the governor of Oregon just signed a law that removes requirements that students are able to read, write and do math when they graduate from high school because it is unfair to black ,Asian, Latino and American Indian students to expect them to know how to do that.
Almost 6 years after winning the mayor’s race, he is finally addressing the ever-increasing crime problem. What took so long, especially from the candidate who campaigned on public safety?
From “defund” to “re-fund”. Creating a problem so we can fix it. Government at it’s finest
Yeah, except Indianapolis (and 95% of American cities) never did defund the police.
Wes, Do you need feel a little ickey that you have to defend the defund rhetoric from your lib friends?
😆
Donald, no. Unlike your side, I don’t feel the need to defend and repeat stupid slogans that the extremes on my side say.
Nah but they were ordered to stand down when downtown got destroyed the 2nd night. Might as well have been defunded then.
Applaud the hoped for outcomes (although none were defined). Would still like to see specifics in addition to the generalities of where money may be spent. For example, how will $30m be spent on mental health? And, so on…..
Exactly…and you won’t find any tangible details. That would create accountability which no tax and spend career politician wants.
Continued legal extortion.
In the end, we pay the price for decisions made 30 years ago. Education is where it all starts. Passing kids thru hoping they’ll pick up stuff they missed along the way has been and is a losing strategy setting the child up for a lifetime of struggle.
It is poorly constructed logic to think we don’t need more law enforcement, more incarceration facilities, and some sort of plan to try and turn individuals into something positive for themselves and society. But understand our hands are forced into these reactions because of poor policy decades ago.
People who didn’t trust government would be able to handle these problems voted with their feet and moved. Looking back, they were not wrong.
Good point Jason R. Perhaps we ought to start by DEMANDING school choice and decouple our children from the rotten public/government schools and the horrible teacher’s unions.
Education is really, really important but the family matters most. Use some of this $$$ for Parenting/Fatherhood programs to mentor kids and train parents. The common denominator in the prison population = no Fathers.
Jason, John, Mark…all excellent points.
Second page headline in today’s Star — “11 reported wounded in series of overnight shootings in Indy”. Something doesn’t seem to be working.
As a felon that has been home for over 21 yr., the officials have NO experience in psycholoy, aberrant behavior, and the family. Money will NOT sovle this problem. Sit down with those who are creating the problem to find out how to solve the problem. Where is the Mayor? He ahould be outraged! But as usual he is silent.
So basically $133 million is going to be thrown down the drain. They keep throwing all this money at this community education hunger relief all these other programs that don’t do a thing. But keep on throwing money at it because thinking is that eventually something is going to work.
The gunshot detection system is likely to have the greatest impact in apprehending those who use firearms when committing crimes. Smart move for Indianapolis to use this technology to make high-risk neighborhoods safer.
https://www.ojp.gov/sites/g/files/xyckuh241/files/archives/ncjrs/fs000201.pdf
It would be great to put some measurable goals in place.