Elizabeth Marilla-Kapp

I’m a parent, a teacher, and a licensed independent social worker with a background in community mental health, crisis, and suicide intervention. I’m voting “no.” 

We do need to do something about the jail, but we don’t need to do this. The county needs to demonstrate commitment to keeping people out of jail. The county needs a strategic plan around diversion. 

There isn’t one. 

We could offer street medicine; we could send mentalhealth responders to mentalhealth-related 911 calls; we could support peer-run respite houses. We could meet the unmet material and social needs that create criminalized crises in the first place. We could end homelessness with this amount of money. Johnson County could lead and inspire other communities. 

We need to improve jail conditions today without waiting to break ground on a $124.5 million monument to the carceral status quo, when you count debt and interest. The sheriff could increase access to mental health and medical care right now; he could cease the practice of charging inmates fees to choose electronic monitoring over jail time; he could offer in-person visitation; he could offer domestic violence prevention inside the jail. Several inmates have died in custody in recent years due to medical and mental health neglect, and many jailed people report being denied care in jail. I don’t believe he will suddenly start taking really good care of people when he is seated in an office many times the size of a cell, when he isn’t doing the right things that are possible right now.