The budget passed. The visiting room is still closed.

The 2027 budget cuts help for people leaving the Marion County jail and says nothing about the families waiting outside. January is when that can change.

On October 19 the City-County Council approved Mayor Joe Hogsett's $1.9 billion budget for 2027 (Mirror Indy). I read the vote stories from Mirror Indy, WISH-TV, WFYI and WIBC. None of them mentions the Adult Detention Center or family visits.

Since the jail opened in 2022, families have been allowed to visit only by video. The Sheriff's Office lists in-person visits for attorneys and professionals only (indy.gov). The budget season ended with that rule in place, and the coverage does not show anyone raising it at the vote.

The one jail change in the budget

One line does touch the jail, at the door on the way out. Mirror Indy reported: "Starting in January, people released from jail outside normal business hours will have fewer resources when they get out."

The Office of Public Health and Safety cut $260,000 from its release lobby program, a space that gives people just getting out of jail clothes, bus passes, Lyft rides and food. The money paid contractors to staff it outside normal business hours and on holidays and weekends. City Controller Abby Hanson told Mirror Indy the office is going to work with the jail to get more people connected with resources before they are released. Mirror Indy added that it is "unclear how that'll look."

That plan is being shaped now, before January. Families should be part of it.

Why families belong in release planning

For many people leaving the Adult Detention Center, especially people with serious mental illness, the first resource is family. Family is often who picks them up, keeps the medication list, gets them to the first appointment and notices the warning signs.

My son lives with serious mental illness and spent nine months in the Adult Detention Center. In those nine months our family never had a single visit with him, in person or by video. I saw him only in brief glimpses across a courtroom at his few hearings. When he moved to state prison, we could visit him in person again. Indiana's prisons offer contact and non-contact visits (Department of Correction).

A release plan for a person with serious mental illness works better when the family can help make it. At the county jail, families cannot even sit across a table from the person they will be picking up.

January is when this can change

Three things happen in January. The release lobby cut takes effect. A new sheriff takes office on January 1. And on January 15, the Sheriff's quarterly commissary fund report is due to the Council, the first one of the new term (State Board of Accounts).

Neither Tom Vaughn nor Kelvis Williams has said in public whether he would restore in-person family visits. Both have been asked in writing, and what each has said about the jail is side by side on our candidate tracker.

Other jails have shown that a restart can be small. In Chatham County, Georgia, a newly elected sheriff reopened in-person visits in April 2025 in the unit that holds women and men in mental health housing: glass partitions, once a week, 20 minutes (The Current). More examples are in where other sheriffs started.

What should change

1. As it designs the new release approach, the Office of Public Health and Safety should give families a way to take part in release planning, with the person's consent.
2. The Council's Public Safety and Criminal Justice Committee should invite the Sheriff's Office, under the new sheriff, to present a plan and timeline in January for restoring in-person family visits, starting with the mental health units. It needs no budget line.
3. The Council should ask the Sheriff's Office to send a count of family visits with each quarterly commissary report, starting January 15, 2027, and post the reports publicly.
4. Before November 3, both candidates for sheriff should say whether they will restore in-person family visits, and by when.

Sources

1. Tyler Fenwick, Emily Hopkins, Claire Rafford and Carley Lanich, "Indianapolis 2027 budget approved by City-County-Council," Mirror Indy (Oct. 19, 2026)
2. Cat Sandoval, "Indianapolis council passes 2027 budget with $400M for public safety," WISH-TV (Oct. 19, 2026)
3. Samantha Horton, WFYI, on the Council's 2027 budget vote (Oct. 19, 2026)
4. Ryan Hedrick, "Indianapolis Approves $1.9B Budget, GOP Pushes Back," WIBC (Oct. 20, 2026)
5. Marion County Sheriff's Office, Visit with a person in jail (read Sept. 25, 2026)
6. Indiana Department of Correction, Visitation (read Sept. 28, 2026)
7. Indiana State Board of Accounts, Commissary Funds guidance (Nov. 7, 2025)
8. Jake Shore, "'This is not a prison.' Chatham sheriff reopens in-person visits to people in jail," The Current (April 25, 2025)
9. Unheard Indy, "Where the candidates for sheriff stand on family visits, five weeks out" (Sept. 30, 2026)
10. Unheard Indy, "Where other sheriffs started when they brought family visits back" (Oct. 16, 2026)

Kate Vale, a mother in the gallery