The Kansas City Council approved $16 million to reopen a temporary jail at police department headquarters, following weeks of public outcry over property crimes.
The city council on Thursday voted 12-1 to greenlight the funding. The temporary holding facility and detention center will be built on the 8th floor of the Kansas City Police Department’s headquarters downtown, just a stone’s throw from City Hall. It marks the biggest investment the city council has made recently to address complaints from residents over a spike in car thefts and a rash of break-ins to local businesses this summer.
“It does give us that relief valve for a time where we're experiencing such a high level of criminal activity, from serious stuff to other quality of life crimes, that happen with great frequency,” said 4th District At-Large Council member Crispin Rea.
Rea said the plan includes a booking and intake facility.
The $16 million will come from the city’s public safety sales tax fund and the general debt and interest fund. That amount will fund the construction of the jail. The city has not yet released numbers on how much it will cost to run the facility.
The legislation says construction on the jail will begin early next year for a 2026 opening.
The 8th floor will function as a 24-hour holding facility with capacity for 144 people, including 55 overnight beds. It will primarily hold adults arrested for violating city ordinances. The facility will not hold juveniles.
Council member Johnathan Duncan, who represents the 6th District, was the only ‘no’ vote on the ordinance. He tried to get the council to hold the ordinance until the city gets a clearer financial picture, but that failed. Duncan argued the temporary facility would not solve the problems of car thefts and break-ins.
“We are very quick to spend this type of money on detention and enforcement, we are so less quick to spend any type of money on prevention,” he said. “And for me, that's an injustice.”
Council member Kevin O’Neill, from the 1st District, said the city has discussed a new jail for years, and voted in support of the temporary facility.
“I understand that this isn't the greatest idea,” O’Neill said. “This doesn't solve all of our problems, but if we continually just put it off, we're doing no favors to the future of our residences, for the businesses in our city that are constantly barraged with crime.”
Council member Melissa Patterson Hazley, who represents the 3rd District, supported the legislation and cited 31st and Prospect within her area as a hotspot in the crime wave.
“I think it's a misconception that these are just minor inconveniences that we should just not deal with,” she said. “Children live in this area, trying to use the library. We're trying to grocery shop. People are obviously having some really significant things that they're going through, and we do need the ability to have people have a time out.”
The decision to approve a temporary jail comes as officials continue to work behind the scenes to build a separate municipal jail, a project that could cost hundreds of millions of dollars.
Kansas City currently sends people to the Vernon and Johnson county jails in mid-Missouri. The KCPD oversaw a holding and booking facility at its downtown headquarters for 77 years, until it closed in 2015.
“When this facility closed, it created a huge void for KCPD’s outstanding detention needs,” said Melesa Johnson, Director of Public Safety for Mayor Quinton Lucas’s office.
KCPD Major Josh Heinen, who works in the fiscal division, said the department needs a larger capacity, short-term holding facility to provide “first consequences for arrests.” The KCPD said they would need to hire more officers to staff the temporary holding facility.
“We know that there are more arrests and more people that need a time out from the community, than we have capacity to hold right now and that we have the staffing to facilitate,” he told council members at a committee meeting this week.
Heinen said if the KCPD arrests people en masse, like at a protest, the department currently doesn’t have the capacity to incarcerate them.
Chris Lopez is a member of Decarcerate KC, a local group that opposes new jails. Lopez said the new temporary jail is a “Band-Aid solution” that does not tackle why adults and teens are committing crimes in the first place. He said there should be “no taxation for incarceration.”
“We the taxpayers continuously pay to lock up our neighbors, our siblings, our family members,” Lopez said. “The city should be allocating these funds to resources that actually support and uplift communities rather than incarcerating them.”
The City Council on Thursday also approved a $325,000 “Back to Business” grant fund to support businesses that have experienced a break-in. Businesses can apply for a grant up to $3,000 to recover from a break-in that took place between July 2024 and July 2025. The fund can also provide a grant up to $5,000for businesses to increase security measures.
