Leavenworth Ice Detention Center

The Leavenworth Ice Detention Center is temporarily blocked from opening and might stay closed for good.

Leavenworth residents do not want their city to be famous for being a prison town. As a result, the community is coming together to transform Leavenworth’s identity into a safe and prosperous one.

Barbed wire fences and jails do not beautify the city or raise property values. Proof is in the standing-room-only courtroom this July as the community seeks to restore its public image. As citizen awareness and civic participation grow, local leaders are better able to represent the city’s needs.

Thanks to neighborhood efforts, a judge issued a restraining order against CoreCivic, preventing the reopening of the Leavenworth Detention Center. 

Wins to celebrate in Leavenworth

• A temporary injunction blocking CoreCivic from reopening the facility while the matter is being litigated.
• State and local leaders who support the community have sued CoreCivic in both state and federal courts to keep the Leavenworth prison closed. So far, it has prevented CoreCivic from housing prisoners while their cases are being processed through the court system.
• Local support is growing with a measurable effect.
  • As a city, Leavenworths’ ‘Plan 2040’ does not allow for new prisons or the reopening of CoreCivic’s prison that shuttered in 2022.
  • A city’s general plan has immense power. CoreCivic is attempting to override it, and the community does not approve of the assault on their rights.
  • Together, city leaders, planners, and collective action by residents can weaken the position of CoreCivic. 

Your Money, Their Prison

One year before the prison initially closed, U.S. District Judge Julie Robinson described the Leavenworth facility, with its routine violence and lengthy lockdowns, as “an absolute hell hole.” 

Until then, your federal tax dollars paid private companies to operate prisons for profit in Leavenworth. In 2022, President Joe Biden ended contracts with private prisons. Since then, private prisons have had to succeed on their own merit. When Leavenworth closed, it was not missed.

What Americans will miss is everything they have to give up because the prisons are so costly. While our Olathe schools have just lost $1 million in funding, hundreds of Missouri parks and museums may close because their federal funding has also been taken away. Our much-needed infrastructure will be defunded to pay CoreCivic instead.

With the Republican passing of the Budget Reconciliation Bill by just one vote, it increased federal spending on prisons by $35 billion. As a result, it allocates more money for private companies to operate prisons than the last sixteen years combined. It is a spending frenzy.

Our Tax Dollars Could Fund Something Better

If the hell hole gets rebooted, $4.2 million of our federal tax dollars every month will be spent to run someone else’s giant, publicly traded corporation.

That amount of investment could go a long way toward funding hospitals, small business loans, schools, or enticing a large business to set up headquarters with good-paying jobs.

For instance, Texas recently paid John Paul Mitchell Systems (JPMS) $640,000 through a Texas Enterprise Fund (TEF) grant to relocate there, a boon to the local economy. The possibilities are endless.

What Can You Do?

Attend a City Commission meeting, and let your leaders know what kind of investments the city needs. The Leavenworth City Commission holds regular meetings at 6 p.m. on the second and fourth Tuesday of each month at City Hall, 100 N. 5th Street, Leavenworth, Kansas, 66048.

You can also sign a petition to ensure public funds don’t pay for private prisons in Leavenworth. 

Thanks to concerned residents doing just that, there have been some big wins. Let’s keep it going!