Leading By Example: Diana Knapp on Transforming Jackson County’s Detention Center

Brian Lee: Hello, everybody and welcome to the 360 justice podcast. I’m your host, Brian Lee. We’re really looking forward to speaking with today’s guest Director Diana Knapp from Jackson County, Missouri, who is the director of the Jackson County detention center director. How are you doing today?

Director Knapp: Hi, I am great today. Thank you so much for having me. What an honor it is.

Brian Lee: Awesome. So how are you holding up in the weather out there? I understand you guys are getting some cold weather in your side of the country.

Director Knapp: It has been actually brutal this week some of the worst recorded weather in the history, in recorded history for Kansas City, the Kansas City area it’s really tough time for our staff.

Our courts are shut down. It’s been a rough week. I’m living in a hotel, so I’m close to the jail so, yeah, it’s been, it’s been very, but they built the hotel right next door to the jail not long ago, actually a couple of years ago, and I thought, oh, that’s going to come in handy, and it actually did.

Brian Lee: There you go. It’s paying for itself already, isn’t it?

Director Knapp: Paying for itself already, yes sir.

Brian Lee: Well, great. We’re honored to have you on the podcast today. I know you’ve got a lot going on in your life both professionally and personally, and all of these things that you’re navigating currently so we’re excited to jump into this and talk about what you have going on this year with your project and some of the work that you’re doing with the American Jail Association and all of those things, but first, I’d like to go over your bio for the audience. Director Knapp’s career in criminal justice spans more than three decades, including work with adult and juvenile offenders in secure settings and in the community she began her career with the Missouri Department of Corrections as a probation and parole officer in Kansas City. In 2017, Director Knapp became the Deputy Director of Operations at the Jackson County Detention Center and was appointed Director in 2018. She has an undergraduate degree from Pittsburgh State University in history and secondary education and a graduate degree from Columbia College in criminal justice administration. Director Knapp is a certified jail manager, a certified corrections executive and serves on the board of directors of the American Jail Association. So hopefully you have some time in your spare time to do things you enjoy aside from all of those things. So you’re very busy and one of the quick things before we, we jump into the questions interview, part of the reason for having you on today is the work that you’re doing with the American Jail Association and your current project. Can you tell us a little bit about what you’re doing there at Jackson county in Kansas City with the new jail project? Can you give us a brief overview of that project?

Director Knapp: I can. Thank you. So, it’s a multi-year project that’s been in the works now since, well, I, I would say that the, the beginnings of this project, probably the rumblings of it started way back in 2016, 2017 but we’ve been really fortunate that it has quickly come to fruition. We are building a thousand bed local detention facility, state of the art facility with the help of CGL just east of the downtown area in Kansas City. So halfway kind of between our two courthouses, this facility is going to be replacing our current 800 bed linear design jail, stacked on top of itself in downtown Kansas City that opened in 1984. Many people consider the design of our current facility to have been obsolete the day it opened.

So it hasn’t been, it hasn’t been an ideal operation from the beginning. It’s very easy to read a lot of articles out there about the problems that our jail experienced. It’s often been referred to as 20 years of deferred maintenance, major systems failures and things that helped us make headlines for a couple of years in a row.

And that was actually the motivation for our community to act, our legislature to act, our county executive and our sheriff, to get us a safer better place to house our locally detained pretrial offender group and create a better work environment for our staff.

Brian Lee: Wow. So, a lot going on. There’s a lot to unpack there and a lot to talk about.

As an aside, I noticed you mentioned a lot of articles with the project and whatnot, and I have taken note I’ve read a lot of articles that you’ve written, so I understand that you currently sit on the American Jail Association Board of Directors. How’s that going?

Director Knapp: Well, thank you for asking about that.

Actually, I am at the, at the moment, I was appointed by President Sean Laughlin to fill an interim vacancy. So, I’m actually serving right now as the AJA’s third vice president. I am on the ballot for the election for AJA that’s going to happen later this month. I think ballots will come out electronically on January 21st and I am running to be elected to the third vice president position so hoping for a lot of support there.

Brian Lee: You didn’t have enough to do, you decided to run for third vice president?

Director Knapp: I have to give my sheriff the credit. Sheriff Forte supports professional development, believes in it, believes in education, and our sheriff tasked us when he took over the jail in 2019 after the vote of the taxpayers, he tasked us with becoming a premier corrections agency. We interpret that as to mean that we are the go-to adult local detention facility in terms of policy and practice for everyone in the Midwest.

Now, we’re not there but that’s our vision for our jail and, and taking a role in our industry, this active role in national leadership in our industry, that’s an expectation of our sheriff as we lead in this field of local corrections. And so that was kind of the natural evolution of our sheriff’s expectation that we really are constantly pushing the envelope to do better be better and set great examples.

Brian Lee: Wow, it’s nice to hear to have that direction and that vision to have the leadership with your sheriff to establish those expectations early on and to give you all something to aspire for, and you, you all are well on your way there. As, as you mentioned, we’re working together with you on this project and a lot of great development going on there in Jackson county. So, it’s an undertaking though, isn’t it? There’s a, I mean, a lot of things to think about. Let’s see, you’re in the middle of construction there right now.

And I believe if my memory serves me correctly, you’re due to go operational in the spring of 2026. So you have a lot to think about in the next year ahead.

Director Knapp: We do. In fact, we’re very cognizant of the fact that the clock is ticking rapidly. I mean, we’re talking about initial occupation as soon as 13 months from now.

That’s the blink of an eye, given what has to get accomplished between now and then it is part of our daily conversation here. It’s part of our constant, ongoing strategic planning, right? We’ve got so many of our senior management team heavily involved in this project and still having to run the current jail, right?

That is the real challenge. It’s not focusing your energy on this great, new, exciting project that’s going to be so much better for all of our staff and the people who live here, But how do you navigate your ongoing responsibilities to provide a level of service to national standards, right?

That’s the real challenge. It’s how do you do this major project and still do your day job? So that’s something we’re hyper cognizant of. I think everybody’s putting in extra hours.

Brian Lee: Great segue. I was actually just going to ask you about that. And you know, with all that you have going on aside from your duties there and preparing for this new jail to open, it sounds to me like the vision that your sheriff gave you and what you all are aspiring to be represents quite a large culture shift with your agency and even in the rest of the community with criminal justice in general. So I know from personal experience, there’s a lot of work that goes into that.

And you mentioned, you know, you have to do the job right now. You’re currently operating the facility that you have right now. So I’m curious with as busy as you are, and all of the things that you have to navigate along the way, how do you go about, you must have people that you rely on, you must have a team that you can trust, you must have some things set in motion. How did you go about selecting those people and how do you go about sharing the sheriff’s vision and where you want your agency to go? How do you project that to the other folks that are supporting you and helping you move towards this vision with the new facility?

Director Knapp: That’s a great question. I think it, honestly, I think it begins with your very first decisions when you take over the helm of an organization to get the right people on your team. So what sets our team apart and, Brian, you’ve had the opportunity to work with our folks here so you’ve met them you’ve spent hours and hours and hours with them and I think what sets them apart is they want the same thing for this jail that I do.

They are all true believers in wanting to be a great place to work for their own careers. We all have 5 to 10 years at least, the shorter term of us still have 5 to 10 years to go in this career. You know, those of us who are toward the end of our careers.

And some of the guys on the team, they’ve got 20 years ahead of them, right? So, they are all folks who really want to work in a dynamic place. They would like to be known as the most advanced, most successful local detention facility, the safest place to work, right? They want to create a place that people want to come to work and want to stay working at and turn into careers because as you know, and everybody out there listening knows, no one grows up wanting to work in a jail.

So, our entire recruiting group are folks that, working in corrections at a minimum is their plan B. Myself included. I went to college to be a high school history teacher. And so when you realize that, you’ve got to have something that reaches out and grabs people because corrections chooses you, you don’t choose it.

And, and then you get this team of leaders who are enthusiastic about really creating a dynamic workplace, much like you might have out in the private sector where there’s bonuses tied and commissions tied to your work performance. None of that is in play here. So, our people are most successful here when they are motivated by wanting to create a great workspace, and that’s what we have on our team, and that’s what we’ve been putting together person by person since I came in as the jail director. And so that’s what we had to offer this project going in was people whose headspace was in the right place for the vision that our sheriff has.

Brian Lee: Wow, that’s great to hear. It sounds like it takes a lot of thought and consideration. You just mentioning the amount of time that some of those folks have left in the department there as you’re selecting people to help you with this vision and this journey, I have seen in a lot of other, you know, projects and things similar in nature, a lot of folks, you know, view this as kind of an end of career, bring people in to push those projects forward that are on the tail end of their career, but it sounds like what you’re really doing is putting people in place that are going to have ownership over the project, that actually have skin in the game and maybe even people that you look to replace you someday.

Director Knapp: That’s absolutely correct. You want people who are building the house to be building it with the idea that they’re going to live in it, right? And I think that that’s necessary, even if you weren’t building a new jail, when you’re putting together a management team, you need a really diverse representation in that group, different ages, different backgrounds, different perspectives different educational levels, different roles here in the jail coming together and we’ve got that, we’ve got that on our team. And these, like you said, these are folks who are going to work in this jail for an extended period of time, the new one that we’re building, and so they want it to be amazing right? Because they’re hoping to end their careers in that new jail but, you know, a decade or more from now, 15 years from now.

So, I, I agree with you. I think that having people who are really invested in that next decade at your new facility versus the last six months of their careers is really important. Now, that is not to say that there aren’t important roles on the team for those folks who may be in their last 24 months of their career, because you can’t, there’s no, there’s no replacement for institutional knowledge. You can’t get it from a book. So, you can’t rule those folks out either. You need that mature perspective, that historic perspective, those folks who understand where the jail used to be and how far it’s come to see the trajectory, the full trajectory of where we’re going, because they know where we came from.

Brian Lee: Interesting perspective. I have seen on some projects when a, a new project or new vision comes up like this at the tail end of a person’s career, I’ve actually seen people extend their careers because they get excited about it and they want to stick around and see where it goes. So it’s kind of, it can be reinvigorating in that process as well. So that is awesome to hear.

Director Knapp: Hey Brian, I’m glad you asked about that because I’m going to do a webinar later this year on the retired on active duty employee and how to manage them. So, Getting folks engaged that may be at the end. You’re right. It absolutely can reinvigorate them. And yes, I am hoping it encourages some folks to stick around just a bit longer than they might have.

Brian Lee: What a great idea. I would imagine a lot of people would be interested in hearing that. So, that’s a webinar. Is that something that you are doing on your own with the department or is this through AJA or,

Director Knapp: It’s through the American Jail Association’s partnership with the Justice Clearinghouse.

Brian Lee: Oh, wow.

Director Knapp: And those webinars are a live feed at no cost. Real handy to, to watch on a, a lunch hour from your desk.

Brian Lee: I would love to hear more about that. If you can get us information on that, I would love to get dialed in and connected to that because I think that’s something a lot of people want to hear about. You know, being a certified jail manager and certified correctional executive like you are, how has ongoing education and certification helped you grow and become an effective leader? And is that a goal that you give to people that work for you? Also, is that something that you believe in?

Director Knapp: I do. I’m so glad you said that. So I think that leading by example and professional development is paramount. I attend classes all the time. One of the benefits of certification is it’s ongoing requirements for continuing education to recertify.

So, you know, maybe you put off going to training or going to conference, whatever, but it’s recertification time. You got to get those hours. So that kind of helps keep you honest to that point but I think that the most important reason for certification is, it demonstrates to the broader audience your commitment to professionalism and national standards in our industry, which I think is a it’s a big deal for that. We’re just now really trying to push and I think AJA is leading the way, by the way, in professionalizing our industry and in putting forward our line staff as the qualified professionals that they are, right, and helping the narrative about what correctional staff really are to a broader audience much the way law enforcement was able to do through the 90s and early 2000s right? Kind of changed the narrative about who these people are and that’s what we’re trying to accomplish. Well certification says to a broader audience, we’re about the national standards and ensuring constitutional confinement at the best possible level in every arena that we provide it, whether it’s how we transport inmates, how we house inmates, how we classify them, how we ensure that their medical and mental health care needs are met. And so that’s what I think the message is in certification. And yes, you’re absolutely right. I do expect my folks to follow and they do. So I just recently, I got another one. I got my Certified Corrections Healthcare Professional, CCHP, through the NCCC. Right. I just got that one.

And I come back and I like throw that gauntlet down, okay, who’s next? I went to the Jail Executive Institute through AJA. I was in cohort number one and three of our staff have gone through the Jail Executive Institute just this year. We sent two of our staff to the National Jail Leadership Command Academy through the American Jail Association and I’ve got two more lined up to go so that’s our expectation here.

And so the same thing, teach a national workshop at a national conference. We’ve set a goal to present at all of the major conferences in our industry. And last spring we did that. We presented at the NCCHC in St. Louis. That was four out of four. We’re super proud of that. But now it’s my time to step back and say, okay, folks, I’ve shown you how to do it.

I’ve taken you with me. Tag, you’re it, right? Who’s going to do this next because I want the next director of the jail, whoever replaces me, to be just as committed to professional development as I am. To be committed to supporting the staff and encouraging that making those budgetary commitments, to those time commitments, to ensuring staff are well educated, well developed and the best way I can do that is to make sure that the team of leaders I leave behind is already there .

Brian Lee: That’s great leadership, Director.

And as you’re speaking, I’m thinking also, you know, such a unique industry that we work in and that your folks work in. And I have firsthand knowledge working with you myself on your current project. These organizations and this education also offer a network of people and resources as well.

So, as you’re developing plans, whether it be a new jail changes that you want to make, incorporating new policies and things like that, it just occured to me that not only do the certifications provide a leg up for you, but just the people that you meet and the resources that you come across.

I would imagine you have a pretty robust rolodex of people you can pick up the phone and call if you have questions. There’s so many people in the industry that are going through similar circumstances, situations, and whatnot that may have great ideas, you know, the National Institute of Corrections comes to mind.

I know you are utilizing them for a lot of the training of your staff, the American Jail Association, American Correctional Association, NCCHC, all of those things. So it just, what a great thing for you and more importantly your staff, the future of your organization, to be able to get out and make those relationships and to get that education. I think that’s great.

Director Knapp: Well, and I have been fortunate to get to teach all over the country the last couple of years and that’s allowed me to have contact with folks who are running 25 bed jails, running 2,000 bed jails, and, and bigger. And it’s true what you said, every jail everywhere is experiencing the same problems.

Whether, it really doesn’t matter. It’s a matter of scale, right? 20 beds, 2,000 beds, your problems are the same. Hiring and retention, right? Shift work, no cell phones for a generation that’s never been without them, the crush of the opioid epidemic all over the country, right?

Especially rural areas really struggling with that, the shifting in court decisions related to ADA compliance and the demands that’s placing on jails, the issue of caring properly for transgender inmates, right? That’s just new stuff for nearly everybody in the country. Some folks are, you know, ahead of the curve, but most of us are catching up and it really doesn’t matter the size of your jail, the kind of problems that you’re facing. So yeah, you’re right, Brian, to be able to collaborate with other people. You don’t have to end up the wheel, you know somebody somewhere is doing it.

And the national organizations provide a lot of forums for that too for you to throw up, hey, who’s got a policy on x right? And what’s working for you? And so yeah, that’s been terrific. It’s been really good for us.

Brian Lee: So shifting gears more kind of getting back to the project that you’re up against.

What a unique opportunity, you know, you kind of have this blank canvas here. You have this rare opportunity to bring a lot of these new concepts and ideas in the form of a new facility and you get to oversee that. So, can you just tell me more about some of the core ideas and philosophies that you’re bringing into the new Jackson County Detention Center?

Director Knapp: Well, the most important is that we’re shifting, herculean culture shift from a facility designed for indirect supervision to what will be almost entirely direct supervision in the new facility. That is officers working, one or two officers to 64 bed housing unit in open movement is going to be a big change for officers who are used to having a lot of glass and steel separating them with population or from the population.

So while we have been successful in shifting our reliance on brute force and depending more on gaining voluntary compliance, which has directly impacted our officer safety or workers comp numbers, but our need to evolve and develop those kind of skills is going to be the cornerstone of our whole new operation and it’s going to take us a minute to get up to speed on that and some folks are going to struggle with that especially those who don’t really have those tool belts yet.

We’re going to be doing some work over the next year, rotating folks who are used to working in those higher custody locations here in our current facility, we’re going to be rotating them into some more of our direct supervision modules here at the current jail over the next year and start getting them used to this idea that this is this new way of doing things.

We’re also going to be asking them to tackle conflicts differently and try new skills out in managing frustrated people that are housed here. So it is going to be a really, really big shift for us. I do think that ultimately it’s going to result in clearly safer places to work clearly healthier environment, but I’m hoping that they’ll find a lot more job satisfaction when they are interacting with people in a meaningful way than what our current design allows us to do now.

Brian Lee: So, it sounds like gone are the days of just putting somebody in a new environment and saying, figure it out. It sounds like there’s a real plan in place here to prepare your staff for the changes that are coming and in the form of your transition team in this project, there is some time built in for that.

So that’s wonderful that you’re able to transition folks to experience that and prepare them for that. I know that’s a challenge for a lot of places, and I also understand being a part of this project with you being fortunate to work on this. There are a lot of positive things that you can bring, you know, kind of selling it to the staff.

Why it is important in your new facility, you’re bringing in a lot of natural light. You’re bringing in this modern facility some of the comforts and considerations for staff, for the incarcerated, all of those things. So it sounds like there’s a lot of discussions, you have a lot of familiarization training and just preparation for that staff.

So it sounds like you’re on top of that and then you’ve got a good plan moving forward with that. So, Director, modern design and technology can really change how a facility operates, thinking about the new facility there, the new Jackson County Detentions. And are there any new emerging technologies or anything that you have your eye on with the transition of this new facility that are going to help you and your staff operate? I get asked this question all the time. What technology is available out there and what can it do to help my staff?

Director Knapp: Well, I think that in addition to the fact that a lot of land was purchased with this site to ensure that we could expand as our population needs might expand as our city brings more residents in, that’s been planned for and, and I think that that’s going to be an important long term development, but the facility design one of the central pieces is more services will be brought to the inmates in their housing units instead of moving inmates.

Moving inmates takes a lot of manpower. We would rather our staff spend that time engaging. With the inmates services coming to them, the fact that there’s a much better design for commissary delivery, food delivery, linen exchange, and all of those support services are more ergonomic in the new location. And the less amount of time you spend moving inmates and population and moving objects you’re reducing contraband flow, right? Anything you can do to reduce movement reduces contraband flow. And it doesn’t matter what jail you’re in or what part of the country or how new your facility is, you’re dealing with contraband issues.

Everybody is. So I think that that is one of the major improvements. Again, the design where staff are physically present all the time with the population is going to help on a lot of levels, allow us to intervene before things escalate, whether it’s a situation between two residents, or it’s a previously unidentified mental health issue with an inmate or withdrawal issues, we’re going to be better positioned to manage withdrawal, which is inevitable with a lot of our, arrestees hopefully also deliver medication assisted treatment in the safest possible way to avoid diversion of medications.

I think that the design is improved in that regard. Certainly, the medical unit is going to be a substantial upgrade from our currently provided location. Now we didn’t build into this design infirmary level care for the population that we have that’s coming in, many of whom are older untreated chronic illnesses, I think that this new location is going to better enable our contracted medical provider to deliver the level of care that, that is absolutely necessary, right, and needed for our population in a way that the community that we serve would value.

Brian Lee: That’s great. As you were answering, I was just thinking, you know, when I think of the emerging technologies, I love technology myself and how it’s impacting corrections and it seems like it’s moving so quickly now in general, not just with corrections, but I can only imagine what the future holds with the technologies.

And as I think about that, as I’m listening to your answer. You know, so many of the jobs that we ask of our correctional officers to do takes away from their biggest value, in my opinion, and that biggest value is, like you said, the engagement, having the conversations, deescalating, being able to recognize issues before they transcend or transform into something larger.

So, I look at, like, AI technology the ability of passive systems to conduct head counts and welfare checks and things like that, you know, checking IDs quicker and stuff that took correctional officers so much longer. I mean, there’s things that you can have robots do right, but you can’t necessarily have robots have that compassion, have that engagement, be able to recognize certain problems. And I know that technology is getting better, but that really sounds like technology is really letting us get back to the basics of corrections, you know, the core of it and understanding people and, and identifying problems before they become bigger problems. So wow. It just sounds like you, you’ve really got a good direction moving forward to a new facility. I’m excited to see what that brings. Shifting gears a little bit, obviously we’re working together in this project and having those outside certifications and those forms and everything are very important.

We’re fortunate enough to get to assist you all in the transition and activation process. Can you talk about building that team and how working with outside planning firms and things like that have affected the project? Has it helped you in any sense? Does it make it more difficult for you?

I’m curious. I’ve been through the process myself, but I think every project is different and they always go in different directions. So I’m just curious how that process is going for you all and how that interaction occurs with your local transition team there.

Director Knapp: We’ve been so fortunate. It’s been a great experience working with you guys, Brian, it’s just been terrific and I feel like the reason it goes so well is well, first of all, it’s a public project, right? So there’s a hard budget cap on this project. This is what the taxpayers authorized, what they approved.

And that’s what we have to work with. And whether you’re buying a new house or buying a new car, right? There’s often a disparity between your aspirations and your pocketbook. Right? And this public project is no different than that. If it had been, you know, left entirely to our devices, I’m sure budget creep would have happened very quickly.

And so I feel like an important role that you guys have had is to take what it is we wanted and we’re hoping for and give us even better ideas than what we had initially, or help us find ways within the budget to meet the needs that we have with your knowledge and experience and expertise. I think that’s what you guys are bringing to the table.

In addition, you’re the ones with the knowledge of what’s working someplace else in terms of their physical plant. You know, we’re going to conferences and we’re hearing about other people’s programs and their newest initiatives, but you guys are in the trenches with what is actually being built across the country and how those physical plants are working and being able to help us get the best of what’s available to us at the cost point that the voters of Jackson county said we could have and so that’s where I think that keeping our expectations realistic while still striving to accommodate and meet the needs that we have and our desires for the kind of work environment that we want.

Brian Lee: Yeah, that’s great to hear.

I know our team really enjoys working on the project and really enjoys working with your department and your people there. It’s just a great group of people. It’s just a lot of fun to see a place go from the transition of where they are to the new facility and all the changes that happen along the way.

And I guess it just kind of goes back to what we talked about earlier. Although you have the vision goals that you’re trying to achieve the bottom line is you guys are still trying to operate your current facility. There’s a lot of work to be done. Everybody across the country in this industry is having issues with staffing and things like that.

So the idea is, it’s hopeful that the outside firms provide assistance and things like that, that you don’t necessarily have the time to navigate while you’re working your full time job and helping you to avoid some of the pitfalls that are happening in other projects. And quite frankly, with most of these projects, these are once every 30, 40, 50 year projects. Right? So, as it stands, most of the folks that are going through this on your end, this will probably be the only time they do this in their career. So rather than learning when it’s too late, hopefully there’s a value there and collaborating with other people along with your professional organizations.

Because I know there’s probably a lot of folks that you speak to in those forums and in your collateral duties with AJA and some of those that have gone through this process. They’ve just gone through it. They’re getting ready to go through it. They’re in the middle of it. So. I’m certain you’re going to be a big resource to those folks as well.

As you’ve gone through this project, you can kind of look back to them, to folks that are getting ready to go through it and share your knowledge and expertise of what you’ve experienced. So it’s great that there’s that collaboration. Well, Director, I think we’re coming up against the time limits. We’ve had a great conversation here today.

We’re very excited to hear about the future of the Jackson County Detention Center. We’re excited to hear about your upcoming election with the American Jail Association. Sounds like 2025 is going to be a big year for you and your team there. So, we just want to thank you for coming on the 360 Justice Podcast.

It’s been an honor to have you today. Is there anything else that you would like to close out with?

Director Knapp: I just want to thank you, Brian, for having us. Thank you for having this program. This is a podcast where our younger folks are getting their information, right? That generation of employees that we’re trying to get in the door and retain so, thank you for taking lead on being an information source for that target demographic we need to be reaching right now.

So, thank you. I appreciate that and thank you for having us

Brian Lee: Absolutely and great point. That is the goal. So, we thank you for mentioning that. Well, thank you everyone for listening to our podcast today. You can find this and other episodes on standard podcast platforms, such as Apple podcasts, Spotify, and Amazon, or visit us at www.CGLcompanies.com/podcasts.

If you have suggestions for topics you want to hear covered this season, or you’re interested in being a future guest on the 360 Justice Podcast, please email us at podcast@CGLcompanies.com.