PHOTO/DECARCERATE SACRAMENTO
SACRAMENTO, CA — The grassroots community group, “Decarcerate Sacramento,” has mobilized the public to oppose jail expansion in Sacramento, calling for the funding of sustainable, community-based, alternatives to incarceration and a drastic reduction in the number of jail prisoners.
“Can’t Get Well In A Cell” is the theme of Decarcerate Sacramento’s exposure of the negative impacts of jail expansion plans. Contra Costa, San Francisco and Los Angeles counties have all recently refused to fund jail expansions because of these negative impacts.
Decarcerate Sacramento points out that the majority of prisoners are poor and vulnerable. Two out of three persons in the jail—like Lorenzo Mays, the plaintiff in the class action suit against abuse of mentally ill prisoners—haven’t even been convicted of a crime. Too poor to afford bail, they wait for trial in jail, sometimes for years.
The jail incarcerates uncounted numbers of houseless people. Many are routinely jailed by law enforcement in Sacramento for petty offenses or simply for living outside. “I did 45 days in jail—straight time—for taking electricity from a pole to light my tent,” a houseless resident reported recently to the local homeless advocacy group, Sacramento Homeless Organizing Committee (SHOC).
More than half of jail prisoners struggle with mental illness and substance abuse disorders and need treatment. African Americans constitute 37% of jail prisoners, even though they represent only 11% of the population, compelling evidence of the racially discriminatory arrest, prosecution, and incarceration of people of color in the county. The jail population has risen even as crime has gone down.
Decarcerate Sacramento, by awakening public awareness, has already scored some success in stopping the proposed expansion of RCCC. On October 22, the County Board of Supervisors bowed to public outcry against the jail expansion plans, and, citing the rising cost of the project, voted to delay further proceedings until November 5, 2019. At that meeting, the Board cut the $80 million project from the County budget, effectively killing it.
La lucha continua—the struggle continues. Check out Decarcerate Sacramento on Facebook for updates and information.
