SULLIVAN'S SALVOS
September 29, 2025
Sullivan’s Salvos 10/2/25
In this edition:
*Free Speech Event
*Africa Fest
*ICE Arrest at Bread Garden
*Jail Size
*Did You Know?
*Free Speech Event
There will be a Free Speech Rally Wednesday, October 1 at 5:30 pm at the Weatherdance Fountain Stage on the Iowa City Ped Mall.
Please come out and listen to local free speech advocates, and learn what you need to know to fight back. Featuring State Senator Zach Wahls, UI Law Professor Andrew Jordan, UI Journalism Professor Brett Johnson, County Supervisor Jon Green, Iowa City Librarian Sam Helmick, and more!
Please stop by, and please spread the word! For more info, please contact Rod Sullivan at 319-354-7199 or rodsullivan29@gmail.com.
*Africa Fest
Saturday, October 4 is the Second Annual Africa Fest in downtown Iowa City on the Ped Mall. Be there! It’s great!
*ICE Arrest at Bread Garden
By now, most of you have probably seen the horrific images of plainclothes ICE agents tazing and arresting Jorge Gonzalez Ochoa at Bread Garden, his place of employment. The timing, methods – everything – is embarrassing to me as an American.
*Jail Size
There have been several discussions as to what is the proper size for the new jail that is being proposed. I will share my thoughts in a moment.
First, here are the facts – For operational reasons, Johnson County keeps the population of the current facility at about 65 inmates. But that requires paying other counties to house between 15 and 50 inmates each day in their facilities. The average daily population as of this writing is about 89, meaning an average of 24 people are housed elsewhere every day.
Our jail experts at Shive Hattery have taken this data, entered it into their programs, and come up with a suggested number of 140 beds. Some folks have claimed that this number is way too large. The Sheriff and others feel the number is about right. To me, this is decided pretty simply. What evidence does each side have to back up their arguments?
On the Shive Hattery side, they use software that figures in population growth, crime rates, and several other factors. I understand why a person might be skeptical – of course they want to design a bigger facility – that means they are paid more. But there is also a customer satisfaction piece. A lot of counties have used architects who use this software. There are not a lot of complaints. Basically, Shive Hattery cannot predict the future (no one can), but they do this well enough that counties keep using them.
In 6 of the past 13 months, the average daily population was over 92. So when you hear people argue for 92 beds? We would be building a new building that was already too small on the day it opens! That is exactly what Supervisors did in 1980, and we have been paying for it ever since.
I keep hearing that we are arresting less people now. That is true, and it is good! It is actually one of the things I am most proud of in my career as a Supervisor. When former Sheriff Lonny Pulkrabek and I started (we were both first elected in 2004) Johnson County jailed about 160 people every night. The average now is about 60% of what it used to be. This, despite the fact that the population of Johnson County was 119,000 in 2004, and sits at 160,000 today!
Why the decrease? Lots of reasons. We trained *every* public safety officer in Johnson County in Crisis Intervention Training (CIT). We started Mobile Crisis Response. We essentially decriminalized marijuana. We opened the GuideLink Center. Little-seen efforts include case expediting, specialty courts, and better relationships throughout the various “systems.” Those are just a few of the efforts we have made. We have done a lot, and I am damned proud of it!
That said, I see this like a person on a diet. To use exact percentages – we had a person who weighed 320 pounds. They did all the right things for 20 years, and now weigh 188. That is great! It is an unbelievable success! It is rare, and we should be proud! But can we ask them to lose another 50 pounds? Is that possible? Is it even safe?
The jail population today is much different that it was 20 years ago. The low hanging fruit has been picked. There are not many people in jail now who could easily be released on their own recognizance. The vast majority of the people there are either a threat to themselves, a threat to others, a risk to flee, or some combination of those factors.
European Social Democracies still have jails, and their incarceration rates are not that much lower than the rates in Johnson County. Even with birth to death free healthcare, great schools, free childcare, guaranteed pensions, less income inequality, strict gun laws, and the like, societies have jails. We will NEVER – and I mean NEVER – approach the level of social investments made by these European countries. We’ll never get close. Regardless of how much we invest upstream, downstream, you are still going to need some jail beds.
So we can talk all we want about funding alternatives – we already *do* fund alternatives, and we can always put more into social services. But we cannot do enough alternatives to obviate the need for a new jail of at least 116 people. We simply can’t. France, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, and every other social democracy in the world has tried. They spend tens of billions. And they still need jails.
I understand that there are people who want the jail to be smaller. But why? Based upon what factors? We know we have had 115 inmates more than once. Does the public want to spend the money on a new facility and *still* have to pay to house prisoners out of county? I very much doubt it.
So again, upon what data are you basing your number? Did you speak with criminologists? Demographers? Public law and policy experts? Experts of any kind? Where do you get your number? We live in a county full of people who use the scientific method. Was the scientific method used here? You may not like the number Shive Hattery has put forth, but they have evidence to back their number up. Do you?
One of the tenets underlying the “build smaller” thinking is the idea that there is too much incarceration in America, and we should not contribute to it. I just so happen to agree with that idea, but I reach a different conclusion when it comes to the proposals we are discussing.
I think there are a lot of local examples that also demonstrate why this thinking is wrong. The Free Medical Clinic recently undertook an expansion. In a perfect world, medical care should be a right. There should be no need for Free Medical Clinics, let alone a larger one. But reality intervenes. The experts looked at the situation, and decided we needed a bigger clinic.
The North Liberty Community Pantry built a new, larger facility. In a perfect world, everyone would have enough food. But reality intervenes. The experts looked at the situation, and decided we needed a bigger pantry.
The County has been through this as well. When we designed our Health and Human Services Building in 2007, we expected the Iowa Department of Human Services (DHS) and the Johnson County Mental Health and Disability Services Department (MHDS) to continue to grow. So we built additional space into the building.
As it turned, out, we were wrong. DHS employs almost no one in our building. MHDS was downsized dramatically, and was completely dissolved July 1. But that does not mean the larger building was a bad idea! We had all sorts of uses for that space between the building opening in January 2010 and a few months ago, when the Board of Supervisor’s Office moved up there. Plus, we bought the space at 2010 prices!
It just makes sense. You have friends coming over for dinner. Is it better to have a little too much food, or not quite enough? We deal with this all the time in county government. Do we want to have a few too many ballots, or not enough ballots? Do we want to have a little extra salt and sand, or not enough? Do we want to have a little extra money to get through the year, or not enough? The answers are obvious! The same thing applies to jail beds. Do we want to have a few extra, or not enough? I want a few extra!
You can argue, “if you build it, they will just fill it.” But there is no evidence to back that up. Look at my earlier examples. Do we put down extra salt and sand just because we have it? No, we carry it forward. Do we spend extra money just because we have it? No, we carry it forward.
Additionally, I have been here long enough to know what happens when elected officials kick the can down the road. Taxpayers in the future always pay the price for short-term decisions elected officials make today. We see it with the current jail. They did not allow extra space for future growth. They specifically eliminated bigger footings that would allow a vertical expansion. They hamstrung future Boards and in doing so, hamstrung the taxpayers of today. You can blame Don Sehr if you want, but nobody knows who that is, and he’s been dead since 2006. So good luck.
I have tried very hard to make sure we do not do that to future Boards and future taxpayers. I think we need to design and build buildings with the idea that they are going to last at least 75 years. I think we need to take that same approach to building a jail. It needs to be built well, and it needs to be built big enough for things we simply cannot anticipate today.
Those are my thoughts. What are yours?
*DID YOU KNOW? Iowa City was the first city of any size in the US to have a Jewish mayor (Moses Bloom), and the first city of any size in the US to have a female mayor (Emma Harvat).
Anyone interested in learning more about County government should take a look at the County website-
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---Rod
posted by Rod Sullivan @ 9:01 AM
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