Save the city jail

Mayor Mark Funkhouser’s suggestion that the city close the Municipal Correctional Institution is irresponsible. First, we are talking about people’s lives, not snow removal or animal shelters, yet Funkhouser talks about them in the same callous way.
Second, of the 8,000 persons a year who go through the jail, more than two-thirds of them are there because they were sentenced for committing serious offenses. These are not individuals we want on the street.
Third, 50 to 60 percent of the people at the jail have a mental illness and, if not for the facility, they would be homeless and would return to the lifestyle that got them there in the first place.
Last, closing the jail would add to the growing homeless population because the people will have no where to go except where most of them reside now, in the recently renovated area called the Power & Light District. I hope Kansas City citizens realize this will cost the city much more than $4.8 million.
Guyla Stidmon
Executive director, National Alliance on Mental Illness of Greater Kansas City

Comments

[NoMoreMrNiceGuy]

Jails are more about revenue than protecting the citizens that pay for them.
Don't you sleep better at night knowing some underemployed father is locked up in debtors prison because he could not afford to pay for someone elses misguided and poor financial decisions? We need not concern ourselves with pedophiles or rapists, those debtors are the real criminals we need to spend millions chasing down and making examples out of.

[Tom K]

I don't think I ever expected to see that particular topic header.

All non-violent drug offenders should be released from jail and the relatively harmless drugs should be legalized including opiates. Make everything available in pharmaceutically safe forms so that when someone is addicted, he or she can use the pharmaceuticals to keep from crashing, to maintain themselves on an even keel. We're better off with them working and taking care of themselves than we are taking over their care and supporting a corrupt prison industry.

[NoMoreMrNiceGuy]

A large majority of "criminals" going through are there for simply being underemployed, hence a debtors prison.

[jack]

Jail as treament for mental illness. Now THERE is a positive reason! Lock up the loonies and let them get punked!

Rep Barney Frank (I know righties, don't get your undies in a bunch, you'll turn ole Barney on), has proposed a bill he calls the "Make Room For The Real Criminals" proposal. It would legalize posession and use of marijuana.

Never happen. Makes too much sense.