The Kansas City Council has approved $22 million to fund a new, temporary jail facility, likely to be located in the East Bottoms.
The approval on Thursday was the latest step in the city’s long and winding process to build some kind of detention center ahead of the World Cup, beginning next June, when thousands of soccer fans are expected to visit Kansas City.
It was a vote some council members took reluctantly, as they didn’t want to be seen supporting more incarceration. But the city’s need for a place to put municipal inmates is dire.
“I think this is a first step,” said 1st District Council member Nathan Willett. “We can't just sit and do nothing.”
The legislation anticipates the surge in visitors may further strain the city’s “limited rehabilitation and detention resources.” The funding comes from the city’s public safety sales tax, which was renewed earlier this year.
Johnathan Duncan, from the 6th District, was the only “no” vote.
“If we continue to pursue detention, incarceration, and spend millions upon millions upon millions of dollars on that … how much money is going to be left over for rehabilitation and reintegration?” he asked during Thursday’s council meeting.
While the city pursues a temporary jail, it’s also setting out plans for a permanent municipal detention center in east Kansas City, next to Jackson County’s future detention center. That permanent facility would take years to build.
“While I don't like the fact that we have to have places for people to go like this, I recognize that right now, the situation we have is dire and it's bad,” said 4th District Council member Eric Bunch, who voted “yes.”
The city needs more support for people experiencing mental illness and substance abuse, and the solution can’t only be to incarcerate them, Bunch said, posing the question, “what are we going to do — not in lieu of — but in addition to this?”
According to city council discussion on the topic earlier this year, the jail will be made of prefabricated, modular buildings that resemble trailers. The temporary facility would include up to 100 beds, and is likely to be built on the southernmost parking lot of the city’s tow lot, along Front Street east of I-435. Construction will begin at the end of 2025 and finish by the end of May 2026, city employees told council members earlier this week.
It’s unclear how much it will cost to operate the facility once it’s built.
Community voices, for and against
Dozens of Kansas City residents opposed the legislation earlier this week in a committee hearing, and demanded council members reject the funding.
“Kansas City doesn't need another jail,” said resident Amaia Cook. “We need real investments and solutions that last. That means putting resources into affordable housing, access to health care — including mental health care — and creating economic stability for people who might otherwise be caught up in the system.”
“Why are we spending public money to cage people temporarily for an international event like the FIFA World Cup, instead of investing in permanent solutions that actually make us safer?” asked Lizette Valdes, who lives near the site of the future Jackson County Jail and Kansas City Municipal Jail.
Kevin Klinkenberg of the local nonprofit community and economic development agency Midtown KC Now supports building a temporary jail.
“This is the No. 1 issue that everybody wants to talk to me about,” he said. “What everybody asks me is: Are we going to get this jail built, are we going to get this open? Because the people in our communities really want it.”
6th District-at-Large Council member Andrea Bough said she’s struggled with her support for the temporary jail.
“I wish this was a city that did not have to build a jail,” Bough said. “I don't want to see anybody go to jail. But right now, I don't know that we have a choice.”
The Kansas City Council approved in September 2024 $16 million to build a temporary detention center and holding facility at the Kansas City Police Department headquarters downtown, but Chief Stacey Graves said that plan would come with several challenges and pushed to build the temporary jail elsewhere. That led the City Council to consider other options, like a modular facility.
Kansas City hasn’t run its own municipal jail for a decade. Currently, people who break city laws are either held at local police patrol stations or sent to Vernon County and Johnson County jails, facilities that are 95 and 60 miles away from Kansas City, respectively.
News reports have shown Black men from Kansas City have suffered mistreatment, violence and inhumane conditions at the Vernon County jail.
A controversial contractor
The city approved a contract to build the temporary jail with Brown & Root Industrial Services, a company based in Louisiana. Brown & Root’s parent company, KBR, was one the contractors that helped build Guantanamo Bay in the early 2000s.
According to NBC News, KBR received a construction contract from the Pentagon in 2002, when the company was a subsidiary of the manufacturing company Halliburton. KBR renovated the first prison facility for detainees at Guantanamo.
According to the website USAspending.gov, Brown & Root Industrial Services has received $1.9 billion from the U.S. government, with $887 million of that money coming from the Department of Defense.
