This story was originally published by Reasons to be Cheerful
15 min read
Up until a few years ago, Jodi Whitt’s trips to the Shawnee County jail in Topeka, Kansas, began with an arrest and an anxious wait in a bare intake cell for up to 72 hours. Her incarcerations lasted 30 days or so, until an abrupt release without resources or support — nothing but the clothes on her back. She’d fall back into her addiction, return to the jail, repeat the cycle. “I spent years in and out of the jail — it wasn’t like I had one stay here,” she says. “I had a revolving door of incarceration for over 20 years.”
Things began to change in 2019. She got sober, committed to treatment, and pushed herself to try new things, like enrolling in a University of Kansas technology education program for formerly incarcerated women. A few years later, she made a decision that would change her life — and the lives of so many other women. “I wanted to go back into the jail and help the women, because that’s where I needed the help,” she says. “That’s where I needed the intervention.”
Little did Whitt know where that sentiment would lead her. A local Rotary club formed in 2021 to combat human trafficking, and its members asked her to join their mentorship program to help women transition to life outside jail. As Whitt’s involvement grew, the club established itself as a key reentry service provider in Shawnee County, fundamentally interrupting the cycle of incarceration for many women there.
Now, most mornings Jodi Whitt starts her day by doing her hair and makeup, feeding her cat and then driving to the jail, where her desk is decorated with affirmational quotes, a ceramic white unicorn and a small, blue-fringed Magic of Rotary banner. Surrounded by office supplies and resource handbooks waiting to be delivered, she opens her laptop and begins a new day — not as an incarcerated woman but as the person who helps and supports them.
Perched on a swivel chair, Whitt takes it all in from the comfort of her cozy office. “Sometimes I don’t believe it’s true,” she says. “Sometimes I can’t believe this is my life now.”
Patti Mellard is a longtime Topekan with an infectious Midwestern supermom energy. The Rotary Club of Community Action Against Human Trafficking is her passion project, formed to fight this widespread scourge through prevention education, survivor assistance and advocacy. Topeka Mayor Spencer Duncan aptly describes Mellard as “stubborn in the right way, doesn’t take no for an answer, doesn’t let things get her down.”
Human trafficking is the term used when an individual or group uses force, fraud or coercion to compel another person into some kind of labor, which can include the commercial sex trade. There are misconceptions that it doesn’t take place in the United States or that foreign-born individuals are the only victims. But human trafficking can happen to anyone, anywhere — including Topeka, Kansas.
Mellard wasn’t thinking about the jail when she started the club, one of a growing number of cause-based Rotary clubs in the U.S. dedicated to fighting human trafficking. But a few of the club’s early members told Mellard that when women were released from the Shawnee County jail, vulnerable and unsure of where to go, traffickers were often waiting for them in the parking lot. At prisons and jails across the country, traffickers search online records to identify targets and track their release dates, promising women housing or money and sometimes even posting their bail as leverage.
That realization was the inception of what is now the club’s largest project: Intersection to Care, which began with the support of a Rotary Foundation global grant in 2022. The initiative has effectively transformed the way the Shawnee County jail operates. What began as a program providing basic resources and mentorship has grown to include classes in technology, movement and meditation, health and art therapy, as well as supportive housing and on-demand doula services. All told, Intersection to Care has assisted more than 1,000 women since 2022, including 134 in the first five months of this year.
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With the help of Whitt, Intersection to Care perfected its system of supporting women the moment they leave the gate. Now, she or other volunteers wait outside to take newly released women to safe housing. Sometimes the urgency of their task stares them right in the face. Once, when Whitt was waiting in the parking lot, a trafficker was standing right beside her, lying in wait for the woman about to be released. “I was not scared of him,” says Whitt. When the woman emerged from the jail, Whitt put her into her car and drove the woman to safety.
Perhaps no American institution better reflects the vulnerabilities of its community than the local jail. “The jail is the gatekeeper to the criminal justice system,” as Brian Cole, director of the Shawnee County Department of Corrections, puts it. He says that its purpose is to ensure safety and security while people await sentencing into the state or federal prison system or until they are released (if no charges are filed). But that’s not all that jails do. Increasingly, they have become way stations for people experiencing mental illness, addiction, homelessness or other vulnerabilities. Are jails equipped to address those needs? Cole’s answer is an immediate no.
When Cole started working as an officer at the jail 37 years ago, there were six women incarcerated at Shawnee. Today there are more than 100 — a surge that reflects a national trend. Between 1980 and 2023, the number of incarcerated women in the United States ballooned by over 600 percent, driven in large part by tougher drug sentences. Adding to the increase is the fact that jail or prison facilities frequently lack gender-responsive care and reentry services. “I hate to say this,” Cole says, “but there was never any care for females in jails.”
In Topeka, changing the culture around incarceration and reentry into society has been several years in the making. In 2018, native Topekan Kristen Shook began working for Mirror Inc., a local nonprofit that assists formerly incarcerated individuals as they reintegrate into the community. She helped develop the Shawnee County Reentry Council in 2021 and launched a podcast, Reentry Reframed, to share people’s stories about leaving prison and jail. “It’s been transformative in helping shift cultures and our community as a whole, because now [former inmates’] voices are at the table and they’re the ones who are providing insight,” Shook says.
In 2022, Shook invited Whitt onto the podcast for an interview that led to a new collaboration. She asked Whitt: “What are your hopes? … Your next year, two years, five years, what would you like to see as your impact?” Whitt’s answer inspired Shook: She said that she wanted to help women in the jail. Two weeks later, Shook learned about the Rotary club’s plans to start a mentorship program. Shook, Whitt and Mellard connected and formed a powerhouse trio working closely with Cole and other jail staff to bring Intersection to Care to the facility.
