In 2010, the City of Indianapolis and the Marion County Sheriff’s Department tasked GIPC with creating a Criminal Justice Center Task Force to study the issues surrounding facility usage. Public safety and criminal justice professionals in Indianapolis and Marion County have faced facility constraints for more than 25 years: constraints that have led to federal intervention, numerous studies, a patchwork of locations, safety concerns, and higher costs due to inefficiencies.
GIPC’s Criminal Justice Center Task Force was charged with the following:
- Evaluating the need for a criminal justice facility
- Proposing the critical components of a facility
- Identifying and evaluating the potential locations for such a facility
- Evaluating the potential costs associated with such a facility, using a phased approach
- Evaluating the cost savings and other efficiencies gained by a facility
- Evaluating financing methods to cover the costs of a facility
- Identifying best practices and key success factors from other communities, which have centralized into modern facilities
Under the leadership of Immediate Past Chair Deborah Daniels, the original task force consisted of several members, including seven GIPC members, representing a wide variety of public, private, financial, and development experience.
Members of GIPC’s Criminal Justice Facilities Task Force included:
- Chair Don Altemeyer, BSA Lifestructures
- Moira Carlstedt, Indianapolis Neighborhood Housing Partnership (INHP)
- Louis Dezelan, Marion County Sheriff’s Department
- Walter Freihofer, Freihofer Inc.
- Philip Genetos, Ice Miller LLP
- Abbe Hohmann, Site Strategies Advisory, LLC
- Keven Murray, Marion County Sheriff’s Department
- John Kirkwood, Krieg DeVault LLP
- William (Bill) Shrewsberry, Shrewsberry and Associates
- Amy Waggoner, Office of the Mayor
In 2011, the task force produced a report that served as the inspiration for and the foundation of the Justice Center Facility project that was debated by the City-County Council before formally being withdrawn in favor or renewed discussions in late 2015.