Intersections WFYI News

To calm a rising homicide rate, Indianapolis public safety has been trying a big social experiment: reaching deeper into the city’s most distressed neighborhoods with services like mental health care, food giveaways and school mentoring. Will that strategy reach everyone in those neighborhoods or will some still fall through the cracks?

Two stories about mental health, from two different sides. Emergency services -- police, fire, paramedics -- have significantly more interactions with people suffering a mental illness in Indianapolis’ most distressed neighborhoods than the city average. Stigma and economic circumstances play a role in lack of care and often those mental illnesses turn into substance abuse issues.

Data-driven law enforcement replaced neighborhood policing a long time ago. Some in Indianapolis, like the mayor and chief of police, want to go back. They want officers to know their beats, and for the communities to know the officers. But in some neighborhoods, community policing is already making a comeback. We spent time with one officer already doing that as he drove the streets of a struggling Indy neighborhood.

In Indianapolis, the number of perpetrators and victims of homicide under the age of 18 has doubled in the past three years. Community leaders point to a disregard for life among youth, driven by a lack of caring adults in their lives. There’s a struggle between mentors and gang members for who will raise those children.

About 9,000 people will leave a state prison this year and return to life in Indianapolis. But more than half of them will commit another crime and return to prison. They’ll fail to find work and revert to stealing, or take up the same drugs that took them down the dark road to begin with. Sometimes, that cycle ends with homicide. So stopping that cycle of reoffending is critical. But it’s not easy.

Intersections hits the ground, following along on several efforts to bring city and non-profit services directly to residents of the focus areas through door-to-door efforts. And we introduce our listening tour, hearing what focus area resident's true realities are.