INDIANAPOLIS — A vital feature of the planned community justice complex is starting to come together.
Mayor Joe Hogsett and other community leaders gave a first-look at the construction of the Assessment and Intervention Center.
The facility will be the cornerstone of the southeast side complex. The goal is to treat mental health and addiction.
Mayor Hogsett said two 2016 task forces show 30 percent of Marion County inmates suffer from mental health challenges. Nearly 85 percent, suffer from substance abuse or addiction.
"We can not jail illness, we can not jail addiction, we cannot rely on prison as health care centers," Mayor Hogsett said. "If those approaches worked, this problem that we face today, it would have been solved and disappeared long ago."
The community justice complex is being built on the grounds of the former Citizens Energy Group's coke site, near Prospect Street and Keystone Avenue.
The complex will also include a courthouse and a detention center.
