In December, Kansas City saw the launch of REACH, its first-ever pre-arrest diversion program in history—an initiative designed to fundamentally shift how our city responds to crises.
The program was born out of necessity—for those in our city beneath the weight of staggering inequalities, for families being displaced by skyrocketing rent prices and for those whose medication costs have spiraled beyond reach, triggering mental health crises that echo in silence. These are the people most often pushed into incarceration by a system that punishes poverty.
Already, in just its first full month, the program is proving its necessity. Ten people—ten lives—have been pulled back from the brink of incarceration and instead connected to the community resources they desperately needed.
Ten futures rewritten. Ten families spared the trauma of separation.
But while this vision of care and restoration takes root, another reality looms: Kansas City’s leaders are quietly starving the very programs that offer real safety.
The same month REACH launched, the city proudly cut the ribbon on the CAN Center—supposedly a hub for community programs like REACH. But once the headlines were secured, the city turned its back. Today, the CAN Center sits without heat, without renovations, without the bare essentials needed to function.
Meanwhile, the Health Department and community advocates are fighting to keep REACH alive, stretching every dollar and every ounce of community goodwill just to make this program possible.
The neglect is staggering.
Last year, the Kansas City Council funneled $294 million to KCPD—the largest increase in history. Even as crime rates remain stagnant and police retention plummets, KCPD is asking for $320.8 million this year—a 7% increase. Meanwhile, REACH, the city’s only program offering an alternative to arrest and incarceration, was handed a mere $1.2 million—not even enough to meet its projected costs.
The message is painfully clear: Kansas City is willing to invest endlessly in punishment but sees little value in prevention or care.
To be clear, this is not naive underfunding; it is a deliberate strategy to overinvest in the status quo and deprioritize alternatives to incarceration.
The city isn’t stopping there.
Instead of strengthening programs like REACH, Kansas City is doubling down on the same cycle of punishment. The city’s public safety sales tax (Question 1), in place for over 20 years, has funneled tens of millions into policing.
Now, city leaders want to use those funds to build a new mass human caging facility, with no clear plan for how to cover its lifetime costs—estimated around $1 billion.
To justify this, Mayor Quinton Lucas and other city leaders have resorted to fear-mongering, spreading outright disinformation that 65% of people in jail are there for domestic violence. Not only is this false, but it dangerously distorts the reality of violence in our communities.
If this city truly cared about victims, it wouldn’t be throwing nearly a billion at a new jail—it would be fully funding the under-resourced domestic violence programs and community organizations that actually keep survivors safe. Organizations across Kansas City are already doing this work, providing real pathways to safety and healing—yet they receive a fraction of what this city hands over to policing and incarceration.
Jails do not solve violence. They do not seek to understand why someone harms another person—whether it’s rooted in substance use, deep poverty, or an untreated mental health crisis. Jails simply lock people away, worsen their conditions, and return them to the community with even fewer resources and more trauma-and no actual change to community safety. This is not a solution. It is a cycle—one that makes our city less safe in the long run.
Meanwhile, we know what works. REACH prioritizes victim safety while addressing the actual causes of harm. It understands that jailing someone does nothing to stop violence from happening again—but intervention, resources, and community support can.
We don’t have to accept the false choice between unchecked policing and nothing. A different future is already being built in Kansas City. Every person diverted from jail, every survivor supported with real resources, every youth reached before the system ensnares them—it’s all proof that another way is possible.But possibility is not enough.
If we want this future to take root, we have to fight for it. We have to demand that our city funds care over cages, prevention over punishment, and real safety over political scare tactics.
