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What I believe is common sense, I'm learning is not that common. The public has been left out of so many conversations on community issues, and as a publicly elected official, I want to change this. I want to invite my community in a new space, where you can listen in behind the scenes to the discussions that lead to the decisions that are impacting our lives. In a podcast I named Common Sense, I'm inviting the whole world to see these conversations happening in real time! Subscribe to listen in on these conversations!
What I believe is common sense, I'm learning it's not that common.
Easter took office as the 40th Sedgwick County Sheriff in 2012
after serving 23 years in the Wichita Police Department. He's
seen a lot during his time in law enforcement, and I've always appreciated
his deep understanding of the challenges we have in our community
and his commitment to the people that he's been elected to serve.
From crime to running the jail to drugs and mental health.
You're going to hear remarkable insights from the highest ranking law
enforcement officer in Sedgwick County. I hope you enjoy my
conversation with Sheriff Jeff Easter, who I deeply admire.
Sheriff Easter, man, good to see you. I really appreciate you coming in. Every time
we get a chance to chat, it's always enlightening. I learn
from you, but I watch the way you work. You're the ultimate professional man, so.
Well, I appreciate that. Well, and people, when I talk about who should I have
on this podcast, you know, we've had multiple episodes. A lot of people, people running
for governor, had the mayor on, all kinds of people. Multiple people said,
man, bring the sheriff on and let's talk about things going on in the community.
Your perspective always is really valued. And I've told people this, and
I've told you this too, and I say it kind of jokingly at times, but
I mean, I'm been in office now three years and I laugh
at when I think about all the jobs and all that Sedgwick
county government encompasses. And there's a lot of really important things that go on
the one job, man, that I don't think I could have, and one would be
yours. It's challenging. It's so hard. Every
day is a challenge. Every day is a challenge. I remember when I was first
running for office, you were down 120 deputies. Yes, we were.
What was that like in the jail particularly? Yeah, it was a.
Well, it's not something that, you know, I'd ever experienced in my career.
We'd never experienced in the sheriff's office. And sheriff's office has
been existence since 1870. So when you're
talking from a jail perspective, we were
127deputies down. We're allotted
250 and so we're over half our staff
down. Wow. And it was, you know, is all hands on deck. I mean,
everybody that wears a uniform, including myself, all command staff
members, we were in there working every week and so, you
know, set a schedule. Morale was horrible
because now you have commission deputies that do Their normal
jobs and then coming in there on overtime. Running shifts in the jail. Yeah. And
so it was. It was a trying time. Well,
how close was it to crisis mode? I remember when I first met you in
crisis mode. Yeah. And you were. There were pods that were closed. I mean,
larger conversations happening that the community's not aware of. That. Yeah, it was.
We were in crisis mode. There was no doubt about it, just from a staffing
standpoint. But then you also throw in that no one really knew
what to do with COVID So we were getting guidance from cdc, we were getting
guidance from the state, we were getting all this stuff. And they
didn't combine. They weren't mirroring each other. So
they'd give different guidance. And for us to get prisoners
from out of our custody that had been convicted to the prisons, we had to
go through this whole deal with them, which means you had to
separate them. And they couldn't be around
any other prisoners because if they got Covid, state wouldn't accept
them. What a mess. We're not geared for that
because we also had 1600 inmates, which was 200 over what we could
house. So was one of the
biggest challenges that I've ever faced. Now, if we go through something like
that again, you know, I have a big old file on my computer that
stored a lot of things in there. So that if we do have something
like that similar, we at least learned from our mistakes or
learned what actually worked for us. Trying times. It
was unprecedented, it was managed. But the situation
today for your staffing is significantly different. Where are you at today and what were
the. What were the things that changed? How did you right this ship? Well,
it. You know, it comes down to there was a. It wasn't just
Covid. We had the George Floyd murder. We had the protests
going on around the United States. And even though it
didn't happen here, it still affects us here. I remember when I was on the
streets when Rodney King happened, and that affected us here, and that happened in la.
Is it public sentiment really, on law enforcement? That's it. Yeah. And
so not a lot of love for law enforcement. Not a lot of people
signing up for this, this type of career field.
What's changed is, as we've seen that pendulum swing a little bit again,
where there is a lot of support for law enforcement. I will even tell
you, during that time frame, 90% of the people
here in Sedgwick county support law enforcement. They're just the silent majority. It was the
folks that are the screamers and the Hollers and those type of things that always
make the news. And so it makes it look worse than it really was as
far as support here. But now there's a lot more outpouring
of support. So we have a lot more people that
are coming back into this career field. And remember, we have a.
It's bifurcated. So we have a detention career field and we have
a commissioned deputy. Career field. Commissioned deputy means that's the ones that
are working the streets, that have power of arrest, that carry guns. And
so we will always lose a certain percentage of our
detention deputies because 95% of them see that as
a way to get their foot in the door to become
law enforcement officers. And so we take some of them
on the other side in the commission side, PD takes a whole lot of them.
Other agencies take a lot of them. So we constantly are having turnover, but
not like what we saw during COVID And so, you know,
it's creeping up a little bit again because we have an academy class that just
started, so did PD. So we're about 24 deputies down.
But two months ago we were 12. Yeah. Yeah. Significantly different.
That changes the operations. It changed the safety within the jail. It changes the
morale. It changes everything. So a lot of credibility. Yeah, I mean, it was.
You know, you'll see on the news that we have this one deputy that makes
more money than I do, but somebody has to work overtime. And these.
The younger generation is like, well, give it to that deputy. He wants it.
Yeah. And so he works a ton of overtime. Yeah.
But anytime there we have somebody calling sick or those
type of things, we have to back fill. But
the good thing is that the mandatory overtime that we used to
have every day doesn't take place. And I will tell you, I see people
leaving after first shift, leaving after second shift with smiles on
their faces because they get to go home. And it used to be we would
see maybe one or two people from the shift that were actually leaving because everybody
else was on overtime. Yeah. You've done a lot, though, for them around the culture
of the department. Share with me, because I want to talk. And there's so much
I want to talk about. I want to talk about the evolution of policing. I
want to talk about your guys's history and your family history in policing. But,
man, tell me about. And tell the public about all you've done for the culture
and the morale of the department, the people that work for you there. Well,
you know, when I came on The Wichita Police Department, 1989, I worked
in patrol, we had two patrol bureaus, east and west, but we all knew each
other because we were still small enough. That kind of eroded after
time. I knew over at the sheriff's office, it was. Still had that
camaraderie and everybody kind of knew each other. And so that's been a built
in, kind of steadfast feature with the
sheriff's office. And so, you know, from there you
just, you try to continue that kind of culture because it's all about
teamwork. Like I tell recruits all the time,
you know, you're coming into a second family. Do you have arguments with your brothers
and sisters and parents in your family? Sure, yeah. And at the end of the
day, you come together and figure out a solution and move on. You're still family.
Same thing here. Yeah, because you're going to have that. But at the end of
the day, it's about serving the citizens of this community
with as much professionalism and integrity that they expect.
And so, you know, we really
pushed about four years ago the health and wellness
unit. And that's been a huge
success for us. And I attribute that,
plus one other thing that I'll discuss as to the reason for our attention rates
now. We actually care for our people. I mean, there's not a lot of.
Well, we're the only agency in the state of Kansas that has a health and
wellness unit, a full fledged health and wellness unit that
we have two therapists now that's free for our employees and
their immediate families to seek mental health treatment. And
during COVID we had eight people that went into crisis while at work. We
had to transport them to the hospital. Since we brought the therapist on board, we've
had zero. And the reason we had to hire a second one is because our
therapist is very busy, which is actually a good thing.
We have 62 peer support trained deputies that spread out all
throughout the agency. Not only deputies,
but civilian employees as well, that get specialized
training for a week on how to deal with somebody that maybe just
has a problem and they just want to talk through. It's all confidential, unless they're
harmed to themselves or others. And so the big thing was, is earning the trust
of our organization that when they tell somebody something, it's not going to be
blabbed throughout the agency. And that has not happened. So the trust is there.
And, you know, just building upon that, we've. We've built
that unit now to a point where, you know, we're looking
at working with the crime commission on a health and wellness center
for all first responders here. Yeah. This is in Sedgwick County. So this big
deal. Yeah. And, you know, with first responders. And I'll speak
specifically to law enforcement. My dad's era,
my era, you see a lot of stuff and you're involved in
a lot of stuff. And those eras
were you kept it to yourself. You didn't say anything, you didn't show emotion, you
didn't talk about it because you're seen as weak. If you went to go get
help, you're ostracized. And so what that did was
high suicide rates, homicide rates or suicide rates,
alcoholism rates, and divorce rates. Yeah, man.
And so we have to
recognize that change our culture, which we have in the
process of still doing, because we still have some non believers, which is fine. They're
the ones that probably need it the most. But this generation
now absolutely buys into it. So that's one piece. The
second piece of that was what you guys did as commissioners. We were
the seventh lowest paid department in Sedgwick county, but we're the
biggest sheriff's office in the state of Kansas. And so the raises
have helped tremendously with retention, with
hiring quality people in those type of things. And so those
are the two main factors that really changed after Covid. Yeah, you have culture and
you have economics, and both of those matter to job satisfaction.
And it's wild, man, because you're an old school caliber cop,
long history. I think you know this, but you
don't have a reputation. Being soft on crime. That's just not who you are.
But you talk a lot about substance use and mental health and culture and what
it means to bring and integrate these things, not just for your employees and your
staff, but your inmates, too. And so I want to talk about that, but I
want to talk now about your family history, man. This is
serving the community. And law enforcement is deeply ingrained into your
DNA. I think you. So you said 1989, you came on as
a Wichita Police Department. Think 2012 was your election year for the
sheriff, but your history in law enforcement is deeply
ingrained. Yeah. So, you know, my dad came on
after he got out of the Navy during the Vietnam War,
needed a job, thought, well, I'll give that a try. And they made a career
out of it. And my brother and I saw that.
And so that's kind of what I wanted to do all my
life. And, you know, there's several reasons for it, for serving
and protecting and those type of things. But also it's an outside
job. And I worked at A local aircraft company before that.
And you clock in and you do the same thing day in, day out. This
is something different. Every hour, it's something different. So
that intrigued me. Dad and mom weren't fans of it. They didn't want me
joining this profession because they knew some of the dangers of it and
those type of things. But that's not something that I've ever
really looked at, because as a law enforcement
officer, if you're concentrating on, oh, this person could hurt me, this person could shoot
me, this, you'll never get your job done. You know
that. That's a possibility, but that's not something I've ever
concentrated on. I've concentrated on how can I help people and how can I take
the bad guys off the streets? That's it. My brother came on the
sheriff's office. He applied for the police department, but the chief at the time had
a nepotism rule, so he wouldn't hire him. Okay. So he came
on the sheriff's office and
was there for two and a half years. Two and a half years.
And then was shot and killed on January 8th of
1996. And then I remember
my cousin Travis coming up to the hospital, and I'm
looking. I said, this is the reason why you don't want to become a cop.
Wow. He became a copy year later. Yeah. And now he's a deputy chief over
at the police department. Yeah. So it's deeply ingrained. Yeah. None
of my kids will be doing it. Yeah. They've already told me. I'm good. Well,
I'll tell you, man, one of the. One of the things that was deeply moving
for me. I've never told you this, but every May, at the law
enforcement memorial service that we have in front of city. Hall.
I come as chairman. I read a proclamation, and you obviously
speak. And then they read the names alongside chief of police Joe
Silva and read the names of individuals have been killed in action for the.
For the sheriff's department and the Wichita Police Department. Remember the
first time, my first year as chairman, two years ago, I was sitting next to
you, and they read your brother's name, Kevin Easter. And for me, that was a
really heavy moment for me. And you were stoic and you.
But it didn't lose sight for me
sitting there that I was sitting next to you, and your brother was killed in
action for doing this job. And yet here you are. It didn't deter
you. It didn't. It didn't move you from wanting to continue to do this job.
In fact, you Went on to become the sheriff. And you're the highest ranking
law enforcement officer in the county.
That, I mean, did you ever have a doubt after your brother was
shot? No, I was up in the gang unit when that happened.
I mean, I thoroughly enjoyed my career. Thoroughly enjoyed where I was at. I
was back to work a week later. It wasn't easy, but
now family, there was some pressures there to get out, I'm sure.
But I knew that. That's kind of all I knew
at that point. I'd been on about nine years at that point, or
seven years at that point. And I knew that
this was the career field I chose and this is what I was going to
do. And the need is great. And so, so it. Even
more so after that. I
couldn't think about those things or you aren't going to be successful as a
law enforcement officer if you're constantly thinking about who's going to hurt you because you'll
overreact to things. You'll. And that's
all you're concentrating on. And we weren't a family that
sat around and talked of cop stuff at home. We never talked about it. Well,
I mean, we were just normal people and that was our job at home.
That. That's our job. That's our career. We didn't. That's not the type
of family what you see on TV with blue blood. That was not my family.
Interesting. Yeah, Travis and I don't talk about that stuff. Really. Yeah.
Well. So Wichita Police Department. You serve how many, 12 years there total?
How many years? No, 23 and a half. 23. Sorry, forgive me. 23 years there
and then you decide to run for sheriff? Yeah. What's that decision and how did
that come about? And why the shift there? I mean, this big deal. Yeah. You
know, so I was always kind of interested. It's kind of funny because my
brother had only been married seven months to his wife Julie
when he was killed. And after the funeral and stuff and
you know, she was bitter because she lost her husband, but she was kind of
bitter. When people lose people, they want to
lash out at something. And she was kind of bitter at the sheriff's office. And
she was like, hey, you know, someday you need to run for
sheriff. I never even thought about that. But. But later on I'm
like, I know a lot of those folks over there. I kind of know the
culture. You know, Kevin came from there. Didn't
know trajectory wise where I would be at with the police
department. Met with Chief Williams, talked to him about it.
He Thought it was a good idea. You know, I had said, well, if you
make me deputy chief, then I'll stay. And he just kind of looked at me
like Chief Williams did and said, mm. And that's not a position to
put the chief in, because he can't tell you that anyway. But that kind of
was like, okay, I'll give it a shot. Because if I didn't make
it, I loved my career as a captain at the police department. I would have
still been there. So I looked at it that there was a time for a
change. The culture had gotten stagnant,
and sometimes a change is a good thing and
some new kind of processes, some new ideas,
new way of doing some things. Right. And that's what I ran
on and was elected. Yeah, absolutely. You were absolutely elected. And you've been elected now
four times. Yes. You serve the people of this community. I love
educating constituents about the county government and
the understanding and county. Obviously there's five county commissioners, but then there's
other electeds. In county government, you have the registry of deeds, the elected treasurer elected
county clerk, elected district attorney, and an elected sheriff.
We all have to get elected by the entire county. Not a slip. Yeah. Not
just 105,000 people. Yeah. Yeah. You have 525,000
people in this county in the constituency that you are serving. And
what's so unique is. And this is very important that people understand, you
don't work for the county commission. The county commission doesn't work for you.
We have budgetary check and balance to where we're going to fund your budget. But
you work for the people. Yes. And that's very important that people
understand of how this check and balance works between. And the relationship. Why the
relationship is important that we need to understand your operations. But you
run the sheriff's office. You are the chief law enforcement officer, and we. We fund
your budget. Correct. And you know that
growing up under city government, government, you know, over there, it's
different. You know, the chief answers the city manager, and
then also to the elected officials and those type of things. But what I learned
from that is that relationship building over there, Right? Yeah.
I come here, get hit up by several different people,
that the sheriff's office is
autonomous. They don't really work with us on anything.
And that needed to change because there needs to be a partnership there,
because I get it. I'm an independent elected official.
But some of our policies are intertwined with county policy, Our budget's intertwined,
those type of things. So it's important to have Those relationships
and that's. I still preach that today. And it is good relationships too.
You're often over at the county offices. We talk frequently multiple
times a week. That relationship is good because the partnership's there and we need to
understand your budget and your pressures so that we can make sure you have the
resources you need to do the job that the people elected you to do.
Absolutely. How's it different? Wichita Police Department, Sheriff's
department, obviously similarities. But how are they different? It's much different.
You know, there in the city of Wichita, you're constantly responding to
calls, 911 calls, just non stop. And you know, crime
rates are higher and those type of things. They don't have to worry about the
jail, they don't have to worry about the court system, they don't have to worry
about warrants and those type of things over at the
sheriff's office. Sheriffs are,
there's a lot of states, Kansas state statutes that dictate what
sheriffs will do. Right. Not necessarily police departments. And so we
do have the responsibility of public safety, which
is the same thing, you know, riding the streets, having deputies out in the field,
answering calls, arresting folks for crimes, those type of things. That's.
That's similar. What isn't similar is the jail
that's the biggest monster. Oh yeah. In this county.
Both money wise, personnel wise, problem wise.
Yeah. And but what a lot of people don't know, we
also have to provide security to all the judges
inside of courthouse. The courthouse. And so we have a whole judicial division
that does that. Plus we're responsible for serving every piece of
paperwork that a judge hands down an order on. So we have a civil section
that serves all of those PFAs, court orders,
garnishments, all of that stuff. It's about somewhere around 33,000
pieces of paper a year that we serve people. Plus we have
warrants. So anytime a person is charged in
district court, which most of the time is felonies,
then we're responsible for the warrant verification, the warrant
entry. And then we have a warrant unit tries to go out and
you know, we have 9,000 outstanding warrants. Now any law enforcement officer,
once that warrant hits the national crime computer and they're alerted
to it, they can all rest as well on those warrants. Thank goodness it's not
just only or sheriff's office personnel can arrest.
But yeah, those are the main differences between a
city police department and the sheriff's office. So you're almost 40 years into law enforcement.
You're probably the perfect Guy in this community to ask this question to how has
policing changed in your career? How has it evolved?
What's different today than what it was when you first started? A whole
lot different. Yeah. So I'll start off with
technology. My regular vehicle
is down for service right now. It's gonna be down for three days. So they
put me in a brand new marked patrol
vehicle and I look at it has 55 miles. I'm like, oh my God, I
don't want this. Because we make fun of the folks that wreck those brand new
cars and watch, I'll wreck this dang thing. But I get
in there and I'm looking around and I think to myself, oh my
God. Yeah. You know,
with the police department where I worked at a lot of two officer units, you
can't even do that nowadays because of the mcts and everything else that
kind of occupies that passenger side. And so
technology by far and wide is number one.
The amount of technology at these deputies hands is fantastic.
But it costs money. Yeah. And it takes up a lot of room.
Yeah. And so that's one of the biggest
changes from an enforcement standpoint.
You know, a lot of different case law has changed since I was a beat
officer. Some of it a lot more restrictive, some of
it with restrictions that give guidance, those type of things.
And so you have to be very up to speed on case
law, supreme court decisions. Every year
legislators pass new laws that affect law
enforcement. So we have to be up to speed on that every year.
So you know that that changes every year.
For a while there, you didn't see as many supreme court decisions, case law
decisions in the 90s, in the mid
2000s to now, all the time it's coming
out non stop. So it changes constantly. Talk to me about the
influx, the challenges now with policing and the mental health and substance
use. Obviously the mental health challenge. There's always been mental health
challenges and there's always been substance use and drugs.
I assert and claim that the drugs that are impacting our community have
changed and the outputs have changed significantly. The. The indu.
It's inducing psychosis in many regards. The methods on the street, obviously the opioids
and fentanyl in particular. How has that impacted policing?
Tremendously. Because, you know, going back to what else has changed, I mean you would
as a beat officer, you know, on third shift, you'd see somebody drunk
on the side of the road, you know, standing on the side of the road
or whatever, and they're not committing a law
violation, but you'd pick them up and you take them right over down the street
here to Dodge House, and they had 150 beds for them to sober up. You
just took them and there they went. When it came to mental health stuff, if
you had a mental health problem, a significant one that we're
constantly addressing,
those folks would immediately go to a hospital, those type of
things. And some of them because they had long term housing, fit, long
term housing, and we never saw them again. So we didn't have near the mental
health and substance abuse issues back then. What
we had back then was cocaine, and crack cocaine was prevalent. Crack
cocaine decimated a segment of this community. And so we saw
what that did with the gang influx, the homicides, the
shootings, all that type of stuff. In the late
90s, early 2000s, we in law enforcement changed on how we addressed
that. We addressed it very effectively. Community policing came on board.
Right. Community policing was a big game changer. And you were at the start of
that community policing movement, and that was. A big game
changer. And some other things that we did,
you know, resulted in the lowest homicide rate we'd seen in years of just 13
homicides in 07 or 08. It's because of all those things.
Well, then, you know, 08 comes around with
money issues and those type of stuff. So we took SROs out of, out of
the middle schools, which was problematic. Some of the
monies that goes to the nonprofits that had been established to help with some of
this stuff that all went away. And then we get 14
or 15, we start getting this. And now meth is huge. Yeah.
And now fentanyl is huge. And so the, the crack
cocaine wasn't going to. You take it one
time, it's going to kill you. Over time it can.
Same with methamphetamine. But the problem with methamphetamine is,
is it burns holes
in you and burns hole. You know, that's why people have holes all over their
skin stuff. Well, it also burns your brain. Your brain. Yeah.
And you never get that function back, which emulates
mental illness. So we're seeing a huge influx
of methamphetamine users that now have mental health issues,
plus a drug addiction. And then you throw
fentanyl on top of that, which you can take one pill and it can kill
you. And so the drugs have changed tremendously, which
then also changes what we
see on the streets and what else we have to deal with. Yeah,
so we really, in my day on the streets, we weren't social
workers. We had a listing of numbers.
We Call up a number and say, hey, this person needs your service. We connect
and we check. 10, 8 and we go to the next call. Now
we're social workers. We're all kinds of stuff that was
not law enforcement is not designed for. So Sheriff, how do we.
What is the corrective strategy here? It feels like we've done
some things. Co responder units like ICT1. Obviously
Comcare has had to expand to meet the needs and the inputs that are coming
into the system. We're working in the homelessness community now. A second light and
other things coming. Obviously you championed. If it wasn't for you, we
would not have a mental health hospital coming being built. $100 million mental health hospital.
Now you are a big part in that. You and Mark Bennett were a big
part in that push. But what do we need to do to be more preventative
in some of these things? What is the appropriate response?
If you and I can figure that out, we'll patent it. We don't have these
jobs anymore because we'll be millionaires. But yeah,
it's a combination of a lot of different things. And I
always talk to our people about don't forget where we
have had successes in the past because we've moved past them and it seems like
we forget about that stuff. Good. And you know,
working collaboratively with the
community, with nonprofits because we need the resources to send
people to. We get paid to protect people.
But if we're using all of our resources and we don't have people out there
on the streets because we're tied up doing all this. Right. It's a detriment. Yeah.
So we need those services and we need more of those services
and a quick pipeline to get them into it. So, you know,
the Mental Health Substance Abuse Coalition was formed
for that exact idea. To have some type of campus style setting where all
these services have a presence there. We bring the person in,
taken care of by them, we're back out on the streets. Yeah, I still think
that's the best option. Yeah. And so
just a pipeline for that. When
it comes to the mental health issues, you know,
there's different kind of stages of the mental health stuff. You have people in
crisis, but they're not diagnosed with a mental health issue, but they have, they're in
a crisis, going through divorce, whatever reason. Yeah, absolutely. We're going to be called to
make sure they're safe and sound. The ICT1 concept is
fantastic because you have the safety of an all enforcement officer being
there, somebody who can medically assess them and then a
mental health professional. And you know, the last time I looked at those stats, 60
some percent of the people that responded to, they're. Treating at home right there on
the spot. Yeah, yeah. Instead of going to the hospital or coming to your jail,
they're on site. Correct. And so we've seen it's
better because back before any of those services were in
place, if somebody's having a mental health crisis but you committed a law violation, well,
we're just going to take them to jail. Yeah. And so we became the de
facto mental health hospital. Sure did. And so there's a lot of these other
things going on. Law enforcement here has been educated on it and it might be
a minor violation, peeing in public or something like that. Well, they're not
bringing them to jail anymore. They're trying to get them to the Mac or to
some other place for services. That's right. Which is where they should be.
Absolutely. So you've had to adapt and police on the front lines have had
to adapt to meet these needs and the changing environment, they've had to evolve. But
when they get to your jail, what does your population look like with mental health
and substance use for the 1200-1600 people that are at the
Sedgwick County Jail? So our medical contractor
keeps those kind of statistics. We run between 30 and
32%, 33% consistently that have some form of mental
health issue. Substance abuse issue is
around 75 to 78%. And then a combination of
both that have both. And so
the majority of our folks have some type of
mental health issue or substance abuse issue, doesn't excuse them for the
crimes that they're committing. I'm not saying that, but in 17 we
started a mental health pod because there is some folks
that absolutely cannot be in general
population. They're so mentally ill
that they're gonna be subject to bullying, they're gonna
get the crap beat out of them because they're up late at night
screaming, hollering because of their mental illness. And it wakes up the rest of the
prisoners the next morning. It's not a good thing.
And then not only that, they're a
harm or danger to other people, plain and simple.
And so we started that mental health pottage. It's
worked out very well. It's not big enough, but it still holds 50
people and it's a step down unit. But what
we found, we figured at the point that we get them because a lot of
these folks will not take their medications when they come to jail. They Weren't taking
them before. That's why they're with us. What we found is
through the different services that are provided in there by our medical provider, mental health
services, we can get them back on their medication, stabilize, and we step
them down. The problem is getting them back out in general population very
rarely happens because they immediately go out. They stay in the mental health pod. But
what's unique, this is not. You're not operating a correctional facility like a
prison. These people, every one of the people that enter your jail are going to.
This is just. This is conduit to another point, either going
to a correctional facility long term, a more permanent stay, or they're coming. Back
to coming back out. And I think this is where I so appreciate your approach
and you say these things publicly, and I think it brings awareness to the community,
is you're. You're keenly aware that while you have them in
your custody, if they're returning back to the community, that you want to provide
some sort of intervention for these folks. So. So you're returning people back to the
community that are in better shape than when they entered your facility.
Yeah, that's the other thing that we're seeing, is that the
general overall health of inmates coming in is
atrocious. Haven't been to a doctor in years. They got all kinds of medical
issues. When they come into our custody, whether the public likes it or not,
we are bound by law to treat them for whatever illness that they might
have. That's why there's a $10 million budget. So let's pause there for
a second. This is important. The budget for the Sedgwick County Sheriff's house, about $80
million. The vast majority of that is property tax
funded. The one thing, when I talk to people about budgets and my
concern, the one thing that I have no indication of how to control
is the public safety influx. The cost. I'm talking 911,
EMS, fire, Sheriff. Man, it's like inverted this way. And
we're trying to resource you to make sure you can deal with it. The people
have elected you to deal with these problems and these challenges and to public
safety. And there's like no end in sight, man. And I'll tell you the
most alarming part of that budget, because food costs have gone
up. Obviously compensation has to scale so people that you can retain a
workforce and attract a workforce. It's the medical budget. Absolutely. I
don't know if you remember what the medical budget was when you were first elected
sheriff, but it's. It's upwards of $10 million today that
the county taxpayers are having to fund because the people that are coming into your
jail are very ill. What was it when you. Do you remember what it was?
A little over 5 million for the medical aspect.
So you have people that are on hospice in your jail. You have people that
are on dialysis. You're having to go and take people to the hospital.
I mean, every day there's a very sick population that
are coming in and there's no end in sight. No, no.
And I. The one thing I think you know about me, I don't do the
politics thing. It's easy for me as the sheriff because it's what
the law says. But there is some political issues with that.
It's. It's the Medicaid expansion. Expansion piece. You've not
talked about this. Yeah. And so if they do have
Medicaid, when they come into jail, they lose it. This is so important. And so
when I heard this, Sheriff, when you told me this, for me, this was such
a violation of due process. This was a. This felt so immoral.
If you have Medicaid in the public and you get charged with the crime and
booked into the county jail, not convicted, you're not convicted, you've been charged
with the crime, you don't have due process yet, and you haven't
stood before a judge yet and haven't been convicted of a crime, you lose your
Medicaid. Yes. And if you're in there for longer than 72 hours, you have to
reapply when you get out. Correct. To me, that just feels
unconstitutional. It feels immoral, unethical, like I. But
Kansas Sheriff's association, we have tried several times because Texas
has it where it's just suspended. Is that a
state issue? Yeah, because the county now, Medicaid is funding
their medical services in the community, they come to your
jail. Now the county property tax dollars are having to fund this, and
they've just been charged with the crime, they haven't been convicted. Correct. How do we
fix this? What is the fix? Well, again, we went
several years back and tried to come up with a fix and had some
senators on board that with CAD ads that they would
look at suspending it. We were told, yep, that's gonna happen. Still hasn't
happened. Okay. And so again,
that's the political realm of it. And, you know, it is what it is.
But taxpayers here need to know that it would cut down
some costs. Right. To
taxpayers. You know, the argument is, well, then it just adds to the federal
deficit. I Get that. But it's all taxpayer from Sedgwick
county paying for it right now. Right. And so I'm
very diligent about dollars. You are.
And about 59 million of our budget is strictly the
jail. And every year that cost, because the cost of
doing business in the medical world, it goes up 3% every year. So,
you know, if we sit down and talk four years from now, it's probably going
to be a 14 million dollar budget. But what we've
seen is just very sick people coming into our
custody with the hospice stuff. We have three people that have
cancer and because their charges are so serious, the judge isn't going to let
them out and their bond's pretty high. Well, they have cancer, they're
not going to survive. We know that. And so
that's expensive. You know, the daily trips out to specialist doctors for heart
issues and for pregnancy issues and for this, that and the other. That's every day.
And that comes out of taxpayer based money to pay for all that. Right.
And again, I'll reiterate, we have to do that. Right. You know,
some of the hardcore people are like, I'll just let them rot in jail. That's
not how that works. Possible. Yeah, yeah. And so we are
obligated both as humans, but also by law
to provide for them, their medical needs, their clothing,
food, water, the basic needs that every
human needs to stay alive. And if I don't, I get sued.
Yeah. It's how the world and the taxpayer. Ends up paying eventually even more. Even
more. I, I just, I, I really enjoy telling the story of
all that's happening in the jail. And listen, this is not the Hyatt or the
Hilton. Right? I mean, no, this is not a pleasant environment for anyone. I tell
people all the time, you don't want to come here. Yeah, you, yeah. But.
You as sheriff have had been very intentional that
people that come to your jail, that you are going to do what you have
to do to rehab them to best your ability, when they're
returning to society, they're returning better than what they went in. And it's an intentional
effort. I don't think people know that. I mean, we have a lot of programs
we offer in there. You know, we went in two positions for
social workers because a lot of these folks that come in
don't have jobs, don't have birth certificates to get a job, don't have a
license, don't have all this stuff. So we
intentionally, when we look at our contractors for
phone services or for the kitchen or Those type of things. How do we
get inmates a skill set such as kitchen workers so that they can get a
little certificate saying, yes, I did this, this and this to get them a job?
Within our phone system,
we are able to work with our vendor
that they can look at job openings that are out
there and submit resumes through our system so
that they can possibly have a job when they leave here. We work with the
state to get birth certificates and driver's licenses back so that they can.
You got to have that to have a job. Right. So we
hired a couple social workers to do just that. Now the issue is
in the jail, we never know when they're getting out. And
so for some of those folks that probably are going to
prison because what they got charged with, it's probably not going to help them when
they've been charged with murder. But we still provide the service. Some
folks, you know, we're in the process of doing that and they get out. Yeah.
And so our contact with them is done. But a lot of times
what we do with our really mentally ill and those type of things,
we transport them straight from us to Comcare or we
straight transport them straight from there to another service. Yeah, those collaborations
are. Yes. And those type of things. So they have housing right away. Yeah, that
collaboration is important. If, if you don't break that cycle, they're going to go right
back to you. They're coming right back to your door. And right back to crime
and right back. Some of them are going to do it anyway because that's their
personal choice. Yeah, but what I have seen with
inmates is once they're in there for a while, they dry out. Yeah. And that's
when you get to them about rehab and recovery and those. And you make
those connections. Yeah, I appreciate that. All right, let's talk a couple issues, man.
Here we are. This is middle of September when we're taping this.
There's been some homicides recently. Yet when we look at
the data, crime is down over the last five years.
I say that to people and I know Wichita Police Department has
said that publicly, has shared some data and man, the backlash on
that is people just. Don'T seem to believe that it's perception. Yeah, that crime is
down, but it is down. Right. I looked at, I'm looking at murder rates,
rapes, robberies, property crimes over the five year average.
It is down, but it doesn't feel like that. Yeah. What's going on
there? You know, I mean, the easiest indicator is we were at
1653 inmates, we got 1200 right now. Yeah. Crime is down,
plain and simple. Yeah. Bonds haven't changed, nothing like that.
We were at 132 homicide suspects in our
custody at one point. 60, some 132 at one point.
Wow. And so, you know
the national narrative with some of these departments, they're playing funny
games with their stats or whatever. That doesn't happen here.
And you know, crime is crime, you're gonna report it, you're gonna
try to address as best you can from a law
enforcement standpoint. So. But it is now. Now you had the
spat over Labor Day weekend. Yeah, man. What I will tell you is
juvenile violent crime is a problem. Okay. And
that's what you're seeing as the major contributor right now. Okay.
So I'm glad you brought that up. You and I have talked frequently about Senate
Bill 367. It was enacted in 2016, 2017. Its impact,
taking the teeth out of criminal justice and judges
what they can do for juveniles all the time, man. And many of
these homicides that were committed over Labor Day weekend in this
time period here in September have happened in my district. So I get a lot
of calls. Do something, do something, Commissioner, do something.
How do I answer? What do we do? Well, first off, it comes
down to parents. What are you doing? Yeah, man, I mean, I, I don't,
I don't know how to answer that. Yeah. A 14 year old that's in possession
of a gun and goes and commits a murder. Where's the parents? Yes. Plain and
simple. That's it. And so.
But are we seeing that more often? Yes, that
and juveniles. Some people, some groups want to. Well,
you know, they're 23. They're juvenile. No, they're not. Yeah. They're young adults at that
point. Under 18 is a juvenile. Yeah. 18 and above, you're an adult.
That's why you come into our custody when you get arrested. Right. And so. But
do we see that 24 to 14 year range year old range
where we're seeing more gun crime out of them? Yes. Yeah. So what do we
do? Man, that's the thing, is it's the degradation of the family
unit you're dealing. You have to deal with the outputs of that and the
manifestations of that. Where we see family breakdown, we see more
mental health challenges in our children, which is why the collaboration in our schools is
really important to try to get upstream. But man, help me
as someone who's a civilian, someone who is working in elected office, someone who's
a dad. I have Four kids. And I'm watching these things play out, and I'm
hungry for solutions. Is there a reason to be
hopeful about where we're heading? Or is this. Is this the new normal?
So I'll answer that a couple ways, I guess. First off,
there needs to be adjustments made to Senate Bill 367. It has totally
handcuffed law enforcement and judicial system. Now, I'm not saying
every kid deserves to go off to prison. I'm not saying that.
But there's a certain group of kids that continually
commit crimes and they laugh in our face and everybody else's face because
they know we can't do anything right. And then you look at these kids being
placed in foster care, and these foster parents are like, I'm out. I can't control
this kid. Yeah. That's because they're that group that is sliding
through this loophole. There are some kids. Senate Bill 367
is helping tremendously. They've made a turnaround after being arrested one time, and
they're not in the system. But for some of these kids,
there's gotta be an in between. And then the ones that are out there committing
these violent crimes, no, they stay in custody. Right.
Because they're committing more crimes when they get out. So that's one
piece of it. The second piece of it is from a law
enforcement standpoint. When I talked earlier about how we had to make some
changes. It used to be when we had gang violence in a certain part of
the community, we just flooded it with cops. Well, all the
gang members went under and who we were arrested and given tickets to, just the
normal citizens. They were not happy about it. So we had to change and
target specific people, specific gangs, those type
of things, which I know the police department still does that now.
But these kids that we identify as
problematic, kids that have been involved in other violent crimes, we have to
target at that point. They need to be in jail, so we need
to target them. That's how it worked in the
2000s. Yeah. Early 2005,
2007, we targeted the specific people, and it drove that crime
rate, that homicide rate way down. They were being held. They were being held accountable.
So they were off the streets. There was no recidivism in regards to. Regards to
the crime being committed. Correct. That they were being held accountable, which was hopefully a
deterrent to creating more crime and future crimes. Yeah.
Yeah. And that Senate Bill 367. I know I have a colleague on the county
commission that talks about this frequently. We've talked about it frequently. You've said something. District
attorney Bennett said something about this publicly. It's a. And we have some
legislators at the state that are. That understand this. So these conversations will continue.
But, you know, who's screaming the loudest is the district attorney and the
judges saying we need more teeth to be able to deal correctively
with juveniles that are creating crimes. Yeah, it's a. You
know, I'm the Kansas Sheriff association legislative chair, so I'm up
there quite often presenting testimony and stuff. And probably one of the more
riveting testimonies that I saw was when there was some
introduction of legislation to try to change a little bit of
367. Listening to people from ember of hope,
listening to foster care parents. And they're asking for this to be.
Done, begging for it. Yeah. Because they can't handle these things. The kids that we
see the reports of and they're sleeping in Emberhope offices, these are these
crossover kids that have behavioral health challenges. And
what's happened is we've dumped these kids into a foster care system, and these foster
parents are not equipped to handle this. And they're saying, we're not. They just leave
the system. They're like, we're out. We're not going to do this. And there's no
one that can take these kids. We have to reform that whole system. Yeah. An
ember of Hope, you know, as our call load
tripled since they went out outside of the city of Wichita into the
county. Yeah, we're out there at least two or three times, I know a week.
Dealing with kids that are sexually assaulting other kids, hitting other
kids, hitting staff. Yeah. And the anecdotes that you see if you just
talk to a teacher right now of what they're. What they're experiencing in the classrooms
and in our schools. Man, that's why I just get so concerned about the trajectory.
And organically, if we do nothing, nothing is going to change.
There has to be interventions, but it's not a good government intervention in as much
as it's a community intervention. But what I've learned about this type of the
interventions I'm talking about is we need it. We need a strategy. We need a
game plan. We need to be able to tell our faith community and our families
and our nonprofits this is the strategy we're going to execute. This is how we
come together to do this. And. Well, and I think that needs the next evolution
here is that, you know, we talked so much and have
started the process and have some Other things in place for mental illness and
drug addiction. We got to do the same thing for juvenile. That's right.
Intervention. That's right. Before they get into drugs and they get into all this other
stuff and then they're convicted felons by the time they're 16. Preventative, not as
much reactive. We have to start looking at that direction. One of the things
that we're doing is the county commission voted and approved a CIP where we're going
to invest upwards of $25 million into new juvenile
campus down there with our JRF juvenile residential facility
and with an attempt to try to get more community collaboration and more
organizations in. So we see it at the county commission level. I know our correction
staff and our juvenile detention staff sees it, you obviously see it, our
district attorney sees it. So. But there's, this has to be an area of focus.
We have no hope in changing these trajectories of crime and violence and some of
the things happening in our community unless we can get upstream and target these kids.
Well, I think from a standpoint, since citizens will be listening
to this, you have to understand that all minor crimes
and property crimes, there's a place called JIAC Juvenile
Intake Center. The officers and deputies take them there,
they fill out a little form, they call their parents to come get them, come
get them and then they're right back out on the streets the next night.
Right? Yeah. And so it used to be
even, you know, burglary and those type of things. They went to JDF where they're
in custody. Not anymore. Beyond Senate Bill 367.
So. And these kids know this? Oh they absolutely. And you know
this as well, that what's happening sometimes in these drug crimes is you have
adults that know that these kids cannot get charged and what are they doing?
They're giving the kids the substance and they're giving the kids the firearms because
these kids are not going to get booked in and stay. Well that, that's very
prolific in the gang world. Yes. Because they're already adults,
probably already have convictions. So they get the younger crew to sell the
drugs and do the drive bys and those type of things for the gangs. And
this has been that way for years. And this is what we see and we're
seeing this in this community now because it is alarming. You read the paper in
the morning and you see the news at night and you see 14 year old,
16 year old, 18 year old, you're like what is going on here? And
it's very complex and it's complicated, but we, we've got to get upstream,
we've got to be more preventative, and we've got to target these kids. Not. I'm
not talking from just law enforcement, and I'm talking about from the community. There has
to be an organized plan. Two more questions, Sheriff and I would
receive emails if I didn't ask you this question.
Immigration, ice. Is ICE in this community
doing raids and are they. What's. What's happening in the immigration conversation?
What's coming down from the federal government, the state government, even?
I get this question a lot and I call you a lot. What. What's happening
here locally? Yeah. So
what we're seeing here, mainly in the Wichita area, is folks that are here
illegally that get arrested on other crimes,
they're in our custody. ICE will put a, what they call a detainer on
them. If they're going to be released of charges, whatever the criminal charge they
were on, we notify ICE, they have 48 hours to come
pick that individual up and then start the
deportation part of it. These are individuals that committed a
crime and have ended up in your jail. Correct. And so we honor all
those detainers, we notify ice, those type of things.
And now are they doing it? Absolutely.
We have had 147 detainers so far this year,
and all 147 of them, they came and picked up within
48 hours and then took them to other facilities to
start the detective deportation process. So as far as what you're seeing on the news
where they're jumping out of vans and those type of things, I have not seen
anything like that here. I know they haven't done it because they probably
would have notified us because they're going to need assistance in traffic control or whatever
else. So I'm not seeing that here.
What I think the citizens need to understand, too, is
in those big cities, they have cashless bond
and they have all this other bond reform that they did, where these folks
with very serious heinous crimes are getting right back out. Yeah.
And so what the complaint there is they're not honoring the detainer,
which means they're in jail for 48 hours and back out for
homicide. That doesn't happen here.
We have bonding
restrictions that are in place that a bond has to be placed at a certain
time, which is all governed by the Constitution of the United States and the state
of Kansas. Everybody gets a bond. Right. And so. But
we don't have here is someone saying,
or, you know, a judge saying, yep, you don't have
to post a bond on this. Just promise to come back to court this day.
That doesn't happen here. That didn't happen in Sedgwick County. And so we do not
have a lot of people that have committed sex crimes
on kids and sex crimes in generals and homicides and shootings.
Most of the time, their bonds pretty high. And
they stay in our custody until they go to trial. Right, right. So we don't
have that kind of issue going on in
Wichita. So it's. It's just because you see stuff going on the news
and, you know, Boston or New York, whatever, that's. Their system's
completely different than ours. Yeah, that's good. I appreciate that clarity. I think. I think
the people need to understand that. Public needs to understand that, too. Our last question,
man, and this is a little different, but you're almost 40 years into law
enforcement, which is top police department. You've seen it all
from the gang unit, from the drugs. Now, as you're an elected sheriff, you
work on behalf of the people. You're running a jail that's got a.
That is, again, one of the most challenging things that operate in this
community. What's your legacy
like? What do you want your legacy to be when you finally say, okay, I'm
done, I'm going to retire, I've had my run. What would you want your
legacy to be? You know, I'm just not
the type of person that really. You don't think about stuff like that.
That's why I want to ask you. Yeah. You're going to have. Listen, whether you
appreciate this or not, or want to admit it or not, your
fingerprint is all over this community in regards to law
enforcement, and you will have a legacy. And
I'm just curious what you want that legacy to be. Yeah, I think from
a standpoint, from the sheriff's office as a
whole, you know, when I came in, I wanted to.
And when I leave, I want to make sure that the sheriff's office was in
a better place than I found it. And I hope for my successor, whenever that
might be, makes it a better place than what I left it. I mean, that's.
You always want to improve. You always want to do better. And
it doesn't offend me that if someone does something different than me, but it's
successful. Great for you. I
think this culture shift in law enforcement to
actually take care of ourselves, take care of our health, take care of our
mental health, because I haven't even talked about all
of the kind of medical issues that come from
a high stress job. The diabetes, the heart conditions, the high blood
pressure, the depression. Things that can kill you over
time. Right. That's rampant in law enforcement.
I mean, that's why a lot of times cops don't live very much longer after
they retire. I think from a standpoint, if we can get this center done,
which can help this new generation not be like us
at 50 some years old, I think that that would be a nice
legacy to leave behind. I think it would, too. Sheriff. I. Absolutely.
It is such a joy to work alongside you in these efforts
to. To understand what it is you're doing. The challenges, the
opportunities to do the best that we can from the commission side and from my
seat in particular, to make sure you have the resources that you need to do
the job that the people elected you to do. I tell people all the
time, man, that we are blessed that we've got a great sheriff. Well, I appreciate
that, but I want the citizens know we have a. We have a great
group of deputies that work here in this county. You do. And
every day they're trying to put their best foot forward. Every day they're exhibiting
professionalism and integrity and the things that we preach. And so
I wouldn't be here without the team that we have. And we have a great
team in Sedgwick county the citizens should be very proud of. And we are,
sir. Bless you, sir. I appreciate you. Thank you so much. I appreciate you having
me on. Yeah.
Sam.