Knox County leaders want the public to weigh in on a plan to combat issues of chronic mental illness, substance abuse and jail overcrowding.
For
years, officials have engaged in talks to build a safety center that
houses and treats the mentally ill who are arrested for nonviolent
crimes. The current proposal is to create the Knox County Safety Center.
Vivian
Underwood-Shipe is the community representative on the safety center
task force. The group is comprised of county commissioners and members
of the Knox County Sheriff’s Office and the District Attorney General’s
Office.
RELATED: Take the safety center survey
RELATED: Knox County leaders meet to discuss Safety Center
She is overseeing a survey to get the public's input.
MORE: Knox County to revist talks about safety center for mentally ill
“I
just wanted to put together something brief so that the community would
have a way to provide us input,” she said. “The safety center is
something we definitely need. We don’t have to reinvent the wheel, but
we have to do it right.”
She said the task force will talk
about the results of the survey when it meets again at 1 p.m. on March
14 in the Large Assembly Room of the City County Building.
No comments:
Post a Comment