How to Show Up for Care First

We’re fighting for community driven alternatives to incarceration.

Tues Aug 30: No shady contracts. Immediate jail population reduction. Prioritize behavioral health. Put CARE FIRST.

orange background with title URGENT and a bullhorn and text about the 8/30 BOS meeting

After deferring an item in June recommending a fast-tracked single source contract for a new jail (when the community did a better job than County Staff at vetting a potential contractor) the issue is coming back to the Board of Supervisors on Tuesday, August 30th, starting at 9:30am on Zoom. The County Executive is asking the Board to approve Item 33:

a. Receive report from the Office of the County Executive relating to the rebidding of the Secure Treatment Center project.

b. Direct Administration to move forward with a solicitation process for a consultant to refresh the program requirements and conduct community engagement on a facility program and design in advance of a rebid for the Secure Treatment Center.

If the Board approves Item 33, it will delay construction of a new jail for years. See this document (still under construction) for talking points and more information about how to join the meeting. On Item 33, we’re going to tell the Board to approve 33b and then we’re going to ask them to put CARE FIRST:

  • No construction project the size and scope of a half billion dollars can go forward without community engagement and an open and competitive bidding process.

  • Prioritize the noncarceral mental health facility run by Behavioral Health FIRST.

  • We need abundant preventative mental health and addiction recovery services FIRST.

  • For it to work, the Alternatives to Incarceration process must give agenda setting power to community members, center system impacted people, and remove voting power for law enforcement.

  • The county should focus right now on reducing jail population.

Also, you can spread the word on your social media feeds using this toolkit.



How to Take Action

If you believe that the County should invest in alternatives to incarceration instead of yet another jail, here are ways to take action! Continue to demand real preventative and supportive services that make sure that no new jail gets filled.

  • Submit support letters from community organizations. This document has template language you can use, as well as contact information for Supervisors.

  • Call and email the Supervisors and ask them to put Care First by prioritizing Behavioral Health over a new jail. Find your Supervisor and contact information for all of the Supervisors here.

    • “We’re calling on you to to live up to the promises you made on January 25th, the stand alone noncarceral Behavioral Health facility needs to go first, before a new jail.”

  • You can sign up here to get more info from Silicon Valley De-Bug, SURJ, and/or RECS (the Race Equity and Community Safety organizing committee at Sacred Heart Community Service)

A flipbook of neon orange post-it paper. Shows a hand-drawn building shrinking into the ground and then a plant grows in place. The plant's leaves read "peer support", "mental health", "housing", and "resources"

About the Campaign

The best summary of how we got here and why we need alternatives instead of a new jail can be found in SV De-Bug’s Decarceration Report.

What’s Happened Since Lee, Simitian and Wasserman voted for a new jail on January 25, 2022

The County Executive and his staff have delivered the Board of Supervisors a budget proposal that included $689,000,000 for something called a “Secure Treatment Center,” — a distracting euphemism for a new jail. This is neither the maximum security jail nor the noncarceral mental health facility run by Behavioral Health that Supervisors Wasserman, Simitian and Lee voted for on January 25th, and it is also significantly more expensive than the $390 million the county was originally planning to spend. The promised Behavioral Health facility is no where to be found in the proposed budget.

While many in the community voiced our collective call to prioritize community-based alternatives to incarceration on January 25th of this year, 3 of the Board members who voted for these two particular motions (Supervisors Lee, Simitian and Wasserman) attempted to assuage the community that they didn’t have to pick “either-or” – meaning build a new jail or commit to alternatives to incarceration.  Supervisor Lee further said that committing to build the new jail was predicated on the plan to demolish the dilapidated Main Jail North and parts of (or all) of Elmwood. But as SV De-Bug expressed in a letter to the Board:  

If money is an expression of the County’s priorities, then this budget clearly shows the County’s appetite for incarceration. It is clear from this budget proposal that the County Executive’s office is attempting to trick the Board and community to fund their longstanding dream of a carceral facility. More so, it is also clearly out of line with what the Board even voted for in January.

Supervisors Lee, Wasserman and Simitian voted during the June budget sessions to appropriate money for a new jail. The county is planning to fund the new jail through something called a lease revenue bond. Lease revenue bonds don’t require voter approval because the loan is taken out against the future income the project will bring in. It is intended for projects like toll bridges, NOT JAILS which earn no revenue. But thanks to state loopholes, counties have been using lease revenue bonds as a tool for jail expansion. On June 28, the unelected County Executive planned to fast-track the jail with an item on the agenda asking the supervisors to approve a single source no bid contract THAT DAY with the JE Dunn construction firm, a shady contractor with a history of brown-washing and anti-reproductive health care stances. During the meeting on June 28, the county executive asked that that agenda item be pulled off the agenda indefinitely. This was a big victory for the Care First coalition whose research uncovered the ways in which the proposed construction firm would violate the shared values of our county.

Background

The County has been considering building a new jail. In November 2020, then Supervisor Cortese passed a “Care First, Jails Last” referral through the County Board of Supervisors unanimously to halt the bidding process for a new jail to provide time to consider community driven alternatives to incarceration. Sillicon Valley DeBug formed the Care First, Jails Last Coalition to push this work through. Over the past year the coalition has grown to include Showing Up for Racial Justice (SURJ), Abolish Stanford, the SJSU Human Rights Institute, The Law Foundation of Sillicon Valley, Bend the Arc South Bay, and other organizations, nonprofits, and communities.

Over the past year, there have been focus groups and surveys of incarcerated people, open community input sessions, and a broad survey of 800 randomly selected voters from across the county. The report from the consultants hired to conduct the community research generally found that most people do not want a new jail, do not want to continue down the path of mass incarceration, and want to see the County invest in other services, programs, and facilities that support care and community.

Some of the Supervisors are using the current inhumane conditions of our existing jails as a reason we “need” a new “state of the art” jail. But importantly, most those who are currently in our jails — those with the most first hand knowledge about it’s conditions — did not ask for a “nicer” jail, or for the County to continue down the road of locking more people up. There are things the County could do now to address some of their concerns, while also making a long term plan that does not include a new jail.

We need more resources out there, instead of needing to come back inside for them.”
”Drug Addiction and Mental Health is punished. Most folks shouldn’t be in here.”
”Correctional Officers do not know how to deal with mental health crises”
”We need to stop building jails.
— Incarcerated people who participated in the focus groups

Update From Jan 25:
We lost, but we lost forward. The BOS voted 3-2 in favor of Item 11 to build a new jail but also 5-0 in favor of the county-community Alternatives-to-Incarceration process from Agenda Item 13. Read more in our press release below. We knew that the fight was not over and held a rally on January 31st at Main Jail North. We wanted the Supervisors to know we still have our eyes on them, and we wanted the people inside the jail to know we’re still fighting and the community is here for them. We also called Otto Lee’s office to hold him accountable. Before January 25th, he said it would be undemocratic to share how he’s voting before hearing what happened in the meeting. We think it’s undemocratic to ignore the 155+ people who testified and the 60 organizations who wrote letters of support.

Learn more in SV De-Bug’s Decarceration Report.

On Tues January 25th three of the Board of Supervisors ignored community input and voted to build a new maximum security jail in Santa Clara County. They need to continue to hear from a broad swath of residents that we do not want or need a new jail, and that the County should instead invest in existing diversion and wellness programs, and explore other alternatives to make a plan to move away from incarceration. In Sacramento County, they had already broken ground on a new jail when the Board of Supervisors reversed course.

If we build a new jail, what we’re really committing ourselves to is a down payment for incarceration. It’s our generation declaring that we believe incarceration is a solution.
— Raj Jayadev, Sillicon Valley DeBug

Supporting Organizations & Letters of Endorsement

Voices across the County are coming together in support of alternatives to incarceration rather than investing in a new jail, including system impacted individuals and their loved ones, community groups, service providers, healthcare workers and mental health specialists, nonprofits, and communities of faith. Over 1300 people have signed a petition ask for Care First and Jail Last.

It’s useful for the Board to hear specifically why you support Care First, and Jail Last — your knowledge, expertise, and experiences around these issues. If you or your organization want to endorse the campaign, we have resources for writing your own letter of support. Reach out or share your letter with us using this form. This one pager may be helpful.

Frequently Asked Questions (and some frequently used excuses)

What sort of programs does the county have that need more capacity or otherwise could be expanded?
  • From Supervisor Ellenberg's referral:

    • According to Judge Stephen Manley of the Mental Health Treatment Court on any given day 50-100 incarcerated people that have been ordered released to treatment are held in jail due to administrative processing delays and lack of immediate access to treatment slots. Depending on the program a person may wait an average of 10-16 days to be released to care. [9]

    • There are approximately 18 inpatient mental health beds per 100,000 [11] residents below both the state average of 21 Per 100,000 and well below the recommended standard of 50 per 100,000 residents. [12]

    • According to a survey of Santa Clara County hospitals, 77% of patients placed on 72-hour emergency psychiatric holds wait for two to three days before been transferred or seen by a psychiatrist, 43% of emergency department directors report challenges in placement for behavioral health hospitalization. [14]

    • In the Dec. 7, 2021 report to the Board of Supervisors, the Behavioral Health Services Department reported: “BHSD seeks to successfully divert individuals from correctional settings, inpatient psychiatric settings, and/or state hospitals. An increase in capacity can help in reducing the number of severely mentally ill jail populations, jail days, wait times, wait lists, and ultimately assist in public safety”9 and in recent months has specifically identified needs for additional withdrawal management beds, crisis residential, transitional housing units and step-down board and care facilities and IMD beds. [15]

  • As of November 8, 2021, there are 2,543 people inside Santa Clara County Jails. As of May, 2021, there were 1,109 people with serious mental ill ness, that’s 44% of the entire Santa Clara County Jail population and only about 247 psychiatric hospital beds in the County. Police usually take people to Emergency Psych Services at Valley Medical Center. Emergency Psych Services only has 30 beds. Emergency Psych Services last no more than 72 hours. [from Decarceration Report]

  • Specific items from Supervisor Ellenberg's referral:

    • Addition of inpatient psychiatric beds beyond those planned in the Behavioral Health Services Center targeted for completion in 2024

    • Addition of IMD beds, either through contracting with additional regional providers or development of a County-operated or multi-county Bay Area IMD suited to serve high acuity patients, including those deemed IST

    • Addition of highly-supportive adult residential treatment facilities that can allow patients to step down from jail, inpatient treatment or IMD care, including crisis residential programs and longer-term supportive programs

    • Establishment of a medical detox unit for individuals needing highly supported care and add addition of withdrawal management beds to allow for subsequent entry into residential recovery programs

    • Addition of board and care homes, transitional housing units, and other residential care options for those in outpatient treatment for either mental health or substance abuse disorders or co-occurring disorders

    • Consideration of facility types and the need for specialized resources for women and gender expansive individuals, youth, seniors or others with medical co-morbidities, and persons with intellectual or developmental disabilities

    • Supplemental supports to these facilities such as expanded access to intake and screening services for services such as those offered at the Mission Street Triage Center or for housing of pets for individuals while in treatment facilities to eliminate barriers to seeking care

What were the results of the year long community input process? What ideas for alternatives did community members share?
  • System-impacted community members and their families are the real experts about the effects of our criminal punishment system. In the input the county spent money to solicit from directly impacted people, this is what they shared: (summarized on pp. 19-21 of the Item 11 report): 

    • The criminal legal system is rooted in structural racism

    • Addressing root causes would need systemic changes such as: ending criminalization of social conditions and investing in the community rather than the system.

    • Systemic change means making basic needs like housing, food, education, employment, healthcare, and childcare accessible and equitable, 

    • They want to see universal basic income, youth programming, substance abuse resources, community programs, and mental health services. 

    • The majority of participants from the impacted community did not want a replacement jail; the county needs to invest in crisis responses that do not include police, pre-trial alternatives, restorative and transformative justice, and other alternatives such as serving time at home and public service; 

    • Many participants were in favor of a mental health facility separate from the justice system, as well as alternatives such as wellness/healing centers based in the community, a facility for specific crimes that is not a jail, sobering center, rehabilitation center, and peer respite homes; 

  • 4 out of the 5 focus groups inside the jail were NOT in favor of building a replacement jail, despite their recognition (and knowledge and personal impact) of the terrible conditions inside.

  • Though randomly sampled voters do not feel very informed about our local jail, when given information, voters express hesitancy about rebuilding a jail and receptivity to alternatives.

  • Majorities of a representative sample of voters have concerns about the discriminatory outcomes of our jail system and the impacts of serving time.

Aren't the current conditions in the jail terrible? Aren't there federal consent decrees that require a new jail?
  • Many of the issues with the current jails, and many of the issues named in the consent decrees are not about the physical buildings but the treatment of those who are incarcerated and their access to proper and humane treatment and care.

  • 4 out of the 5 focus groups inside the jail were NOT in favor of building a replacement jail, despite their recognition (and knowledge and personal impact) of the terrible conditions inside. [pp. 20-21 of the Item 11 report]

  • In Sacramento County there was situation very similar to our own in Santa Clara County. The County also had two federal consent decrees, and they also had a disconnect between the County staff, and what the elected Board of Supervisors wanted to do. They twice rejected the County staff’s recommendations to build a new jail.

    • As one Sacramento County Board Supervisor stated, “the responsible thing for us to do would be to continue to explore in terms of how best to ensure that individuals and constituents with those particular needs who have been incarcerated have the best chance for a positive outcome.” [letter from SURJ Sacramento]

  • There are things that could be addressed in the current facilities, including [from Decarceration Report]

    • All classification levels should have access to a yard, rehabilitation programs, education, out of cell time and contact visits.

    • Maximum security prisoners should have a behavioral based path to lower security levels to increase their privileges and access to programs.

    • College unit transferable classes, work pay numbers, job placement, top tier medical, dental and mental health care and Prop 57 eligible credits should be attained.

  • Shannon, the sister of Michael Tyree, who has continued to urge the County to not let his death be in vain wrote in her letter to the Board of Supervisors when they were considering adopting the Blue Ribbon Commission recommendations: [from Decarceration Report]

    • “I know you are considering many recommendations from studies completed on the jail. I ask you to particularly consider the issues of independent oversight, use of force, the housing and treatment of mentally ill inmates, efforts to notify the family of the incarceration of mentally ill inmates, bail reform, inmate complaint without retaliation, the accountability of officers and quick response and transparency in disciplinary actions.

  • Our County can give Michael Tyree’s passing a meaning, by not arresting people with serious mental illness and instead providing them with care they truly need. Frankly, a new jail is a scapegoat that will only expand our crisis, not resolve it.

Aren't we going to need a new jail at some point? Shouldn't we just start the process now? Why not build a new mental health facility and a new jail?
  • As is stated in Supervisor Ellenberg's referral:

    • Item E affirms that the County should not invest public resources in a new jail until, if at all, after other efforts to provide treatment, diversion and prevention described in this referral have been implemented and evaluated.

    • Any consideration of new jail facilities... should remain on hold to provide time to determine appropriate alternatives to incarceration, further efforts at reduce the jail population, and to build out mental health and substance use disorder treatment facilities to ensure actual needs are met and wait times for people directed by the Court to treatment in lieu of jail are eliminated, while also leaving opportunity for these measures to be evaluated. This recommended action item ensures that all these approaches are completed, implemented, and evaluated before new jail construction is considered. We may likely find at that point that there is no need to construct an entirely new carceral facility.

Isn't crime going up? Don't we need harsh penalties to deter people?
  • No. Violent crimes in San José decreased since 2019 and property crime rates in San José have remained steady since 2014. Nationally shoplifting and larceny have decreased over the last decade. 

  • Given these facts, political grandstanding around crime and tired calls for law-and-order are evidence of a clear backlash against the racial justice progress of 2020.  Sociological research has documented that people's fear of crime correlates more to media coverage of crime than it does to actual crime rates.  Racist fearmongering about crime has been used historically as a wedge to divide people.  The current hysteria is a distraction from the problems that hundreds of thousands of working families are facing in our county: lack of access to the resources needed to live, work, and thrive here. 

  • In one of the first academic studies on the effects of California’s criminal justice reforms on crime rates, Bradley J. Bartos and Charis E. Kubrin, of the University of California at Irvine, found no links between Proposition 47 — a ballot measure enacted in 2014 that reduced some drug crimes and thefts to misdemeanors — and violent crime. The study, published in the journal Criminology and Public Policy, found that larceny and auto thefts seemed to have increased moderately after the measure was enacted, but said other factors may have been to blame and that more study was needed.

  • If you care about reducing crime, there are better solutions in the community than in a new jail. A report in the American Sociological Review estimated that every 10 additional organizations focusing on crime and community life in a city with 100,000 residents leads to a 9% reduction in the murder rate, a 6% reduction in the violent crime rate, and a 4% reduction in the property crime rate.

  • We should also question what is crime?

    • Often, the term “crime” is used to conjure images of violence, and claims that reducing police budgets or numbers will contribute to rising rates of violence often conflate violence and “crime.” Yet “crime” is not in itself a measure of harm or safety. “Crime” is a term used to describe any activity that violates a criminal law. The vast majority of what is defined as crime involves no violence. Crime
      is not the same as homicides, or violence.

    • Even within what is defined as crime, cops focus on certain types of “crimes” while ignoring other criminalized activity — such as tax evasion, financial fraud, and drug use and distribution by wealthy people and white college students.

    • “The narrow and traditional definition of violence used in most evaluation research is interpersonal harms reported by the police or to the police. This view is wholly insufficient if the goal is to prevent and reduce community violence. For one, most violent acts are not measurable with police data because they are never reported to police. Not only do conventional definitions of violence fail to capture half of all violent acts between neighborhood residents, but they also omit any violent harm resulting from organizational behaviors, social structures, and systematic racial and class oppression. If the goal of violence reduction is to enhance the peace and security of neighborhood residents, efforts to reduce violence should attend to all forms of violence.” John Jay Research Advocacy Group on preventing and reducing community violence, reducting violence without police: a review of research evidence

  • It’s important to remember that on any day, 80-90% of those detained in our County’s jails are awaiting trial and have not yet been convicted.

    • When someone is able to go home, be with their loved ones, maintain their life, job, residence, and consult with their lawyer (or maybe get involved in Participatory Defense with De-Bug!) they have much better — and more just and fair — outcomes when they do go to trial. Being held for an unknown amount of time while awaiting, in bad conditions, potentially during a pandemic, and while receiving inhumane treatment from guards pushes people into plea deals under duress. As Cynthia Longs from De-Bug has shared several times, her son has taken a plea deal because of these circumstances, instead of getting a fair trial.

    • Research dating back to the 1950s and 1960s has established a connection between pretrial detention and the likelihood of being convicted and sentenced to incarceration. Pretrial detention perpetuates inequities in the criminal justice system. Those who can afford to bail out get to go home and those who cannot afford bail and are deemed ‘risks’ by a judge are held.

    • According to a Stanford Law Review study on the downstream affects of pretrial detention: “We find that detained defendants are 25% more likely than similarly situated releasees to plead guilty, are 43% more likely to be sentenced to jail, and receive jail sentences that are more than twice as long on average. Furthermore, those detained pretrial are more likely to commit future crimes, which suggests that detention may have a criminogenic effect. These differences persist even after fully controlling for the initial bail amount, offense, demographic information, and criminal history characteristics.”

    • “Suicides are a particularly troubling subset of jail deaths ... because the desire to harm oneself is a predictable aspect of the circumstances of incarceration” - Michael Gennaco, OCLEM (source: 11/4 report to PSJC, p. 12)

    • There is no safe amount of time to be in jail. Nationwide, more than half of jail deaths occur within a month of being incarcerated.

More Resources

News & Updates


History of Incarceration in Santa Clara County

  • In 2015 Michael Tyree was in jail awaiting a bed in a residential treatment center for the mentally ill after serving time on a minor drug charge, when he was murdered, beaten to death by guards who were later convicted of second degree murder.

  • In 2016 there was a hunger strike inside the jail to protest ongoing inhumane treatment in the jails.

  • Those two incidents led to a Blue Ribbon Commission to investigate conditions in the jail and led to consent decrees.

  • In the summer of 2020 people across the country and locally called for a racial reckoning. Toward the end of the year outgoing Supervisor Dave Cortese wrote a referral that got the Board to vote unanimously to halt the process to build a new jail and explore investing in community alternatives instead.

  • That kicked off the past year of action, community input sessions, research, learning, teaching sessions like this. This is all building to a Board of Supervisors meeting to decide what to do with the future of a new jail, a new mental health facility, or other community alternatives to incarceration.

  • Organizing takes work and it takes time. We’re not the first people to do this (there was a similar campaign in LA and they won). It took a lot of organizing and work to get us where we are now -- and many different ways to get plugged in. 

January 25th Board Actions

On January 25, 2022 the Board voted for the following motions:

Item 11:

  • a. Direct Administration to develop a comprehensive treatment plan and continuum of care model for justice-involved clients.

  • b. Direct Administration to report to the Board of Supervisors in March 2022 with the care plan, including the development of community services that reduce client contact with the criminal justice system and facilitate other options for jail diversion and reentry services. (also consider in patient and outpatient behavioral health treatment facility, as well as exploring a facility like a deflection center).

  • c. Direct Administration to move forward with redesign efforts to build a new facility for 500 maximum security clients based on the needs identified in this report and provide the scoping schedule for the Board of Supervisors to assure an appropriate design to address mental health, recovery and rehabilitation in mind and also direct administration to move forward to build a stand-alone mental health facility under the direction of the County Health System and report back to the Board with the design and construction schedule by the May 2022 budget workshops of a secured or non-secured facility.

  • d. Direct Administration to retain consultants to renew efforts to develop a Civic Center master plan and to develop a plan for future public safety and jail facilities needs, including demolishing Main Jail North and repurposing significant portions OR all of Elmwood for alternatives to incarceration, like a mental health facility and move to reduce the County’s total jail capacity. Come back to board by May 2022 as part of budget workshops and RFP consultant process.

Item 13

  • a. Approve referral to Administration and County Counsel to report to the Board no later than April 2022 with options for consideration relating to the construction and addition of non-carceral facilities for inpatient and outpatient care in Santa Clara County to expand options for behavioral health treatment outside of jail.

  • b. Approve referral to Administration to immediately develop options for consideration to expand funding and service slots for outpatient and community-based mental health and substance use disorder treatment to be presented to the Board of Supervisors no later than April 2022.

  • c. Approve delegation of authority to the County Executive, or designee, to negotiate, execute, amend, and/or terminate Agreement with Tres Lunas LLC to facilitate a series of special Public Safety and Justice Committee (PSJC) meetings designed to develop implementation plans around community-based alternatives to incarceration in an amount not to exceed $250,000 and a contract term ending no later than December 31, 2023, following approval by County Counsel as to form and legality, and approval by the Office of the County Executive. Delegation of authority shall expire on December 31, 2023.

  • d. Authorize the Office of Correction and Law Enforcement Monitoring to provide auditing services to PSJC Special Meetings.

In May 2022 the Board had a series of budget workshops, to discuss and ask questions about possible budget items. In June 2022 the Board will be making final decisions about the budget for fiscal year 2022-2023. The budget as proposed currently includes $689 million for a new jail and nothing for a new behavioral health facility.

Updates from Fall 2021

November 4th was the Public Safety and Justice Committee (PSJC), which is Chaired by Supervisor Ellenberg and Supervisor Wasserman is the Vice Chair

  • At this meeting, the Office of the County Executive presented a report titled Framework for the County’s Justice-Involved Clients which was supposed to include:

    • results of the community engagement process (input sessions, focus groups and surveys from inside the jail and the rest of the community),

    • responses to Cortese’s questions regarding a mental health facility instead of a jail, and

    • a correctional master plan assessment.

  • The Care First Coalition rejected the report as incomplete, untruthful and unresponsive to the community. 

  • In the PSJC meeting, Supervisor Wasserman dismissed the community input by arguing that 1) because the community members from the randomly sampled survey admitted that they did not know much about our local jail context, they were “uninformed” and therefore their opinions shouldn’t be given much weight and 2) because the community input sessions and focus groups inside the jails included many system-impacted people and therefore their opinions are “biased.”  In this meeting, Ellenberg directed county staff to come back, by Wednesday November 10, with a more complete version of the report that actually addresses the supervisors questions and said that if they could not do this, then she would hold back the report from the BOS.

  • The section of the Framework for the County’s Justice-Involved Clients that summarized the findings from the community input process found this: 

    • While they didn’t think we could do away with jails entirely, the randomly sampled county residents overwhelmingly agree that offenders with mental illness or drug addiction should receive treatment rather than being sent to jail and majorities of voters have concerns about systemic discrimination in our criminal legal system and the impacts of serving time.

    • The randomly sampled focus groups of high and low engagement voters desire change in how we handle criminal justice but were less able to provide specifics on what that should look like.  They felt relatively disconnected from the specifics of our local county jail context but keenly aware of and influenced by broader national discussions surrounding criminal justice, see the need for systemic change and want to emphasize mental health and humane treatment.

    • The majority of the participants in the county’s community input sessions do not want the county to invest in building a new replacement jail. There is clear interest in reimagining the justice system as a whole, addressing the root causes of incarceration, and exploring alternatives. Participants emphasized the need for systemic changes such as bail reform, ending the criminalization of mental illness and homelessness, addressing over-policing, changing probation requirements, utilizing crisis teams rather than police, connecting people to community-based pretrial services, and increasing diversion. They also suggested alternatives such as a wellness center, a sobering center, a mental health facility, case management, public service, therapy, restorative justice and investment in community/prevention, i.e. housing, education, universal basic income.  

  • The county staff authors of the report used problematic language in their framing of this report.  First off, they assume that because someone is charged with a felony they therefore will inevitably convicted, as if there is no legal presumption of innocence.  Second, in reporting out the community input they refer to the randomly sampled voters as members of the ‘general population’ and participants in the community input sessions as people with “a vested interest in these issues’ as if the general public does not have a vested interest and as if people who care about this aren’t also members of the general public.  Also, the county was supposed to have advertised widely for the community input sessions and could have invited their own constituents to attend.

  • On November 16, the BOS voted to push back the agenda items regarding these reports until January 2022.

Press Release

For Immediate Release - Jan 26, 2022

CONTACT: Jen Myhre | jenm@sacredheartcs.org | 408-550-5554

"They just completely ignored us."

Supervisors Lee, Simitian and Wasserman Dismissed Community Consensus in Jail Vote

Last night on a Zoom call to process what happened at the Board of Supervisors meeting, José Valle from Silicon Valley De-Bug perfectly summed up the vote from earlier in the day: "They just completely ignored us."  After voting for and funding a 10 month community input process, and hearing from an outpouring of constituents from across the County, who overwhelmingly called for funding alternatives to incarceration instead of a new jail, a slim majority of the Supervisors voted to build a maximum security jail.  The broad based consensus of community groups, faith communities, direct service providers and constituents commit to continuing to fight for the social services that produce real community safety.

Santa Clara County–On January 25, 2022 Supervisors Lee, Simitian and Wasserman insisted that they know better than those who are actually experiencing the conditions in the jail every day as well as people working on the front lines of our mental illness and addiction crises in the South Bay. In focus groups with people inside the jail, those with the most knowledge of and most harmed by the terrible conditions inside said they didn't think the county should build a new jail.  System impacted community members shared in input sessions through the summer and fall that they didn't want the county to build a new jail and wanted investment in social services like housing, education and community based mental health services instead. The randomly sampled voters the county surveyed recognized that jails are discriminatory and that people with mental illness and addiction need treatment instead of a new jail.  Over 1300 community members signed a petition telling the supervisors we don't want a new jail in the county, but want alternatives to incarceration instead. Over fifty-five different organizations-- direct service providers, advocacy groups, religious organizations, and scholars--sent in letters to the Board laying out the case in meticulous detail about why the county needs to invest in the kinds of resources that produce real community safety. Collectively those groups represent thousands of Santa Clara County residents. And after all of that, Supervisors Wasserman, Lee and Simitian "just completely ignored" the wishes of their own constituents and did what they wanted to do a year ago–voted for a new jail, despite months of community input solicited at the direction of the Board of Supervisors themselves.

On January 19th, at a meeting with community members, Supervisor Otto Lee said that he could not commit to whether he would vote for a new jail or alternatives because it would be undemocratic to decide before hearing from the public during the comment session on January 25th.  In that comment session 155 people waited for hours to speak after raising their hands shortly after 11am and those 155 people--doctors, lawyers, family members of people inside the jails, union members, public health workers, therapists, teachers, Catholics, Jews, Muslims and Protestants--told the county supervisors they did not want a new jail in our county.  Each one had their own story and each person said that the county would spend its money more wisely if it invested in the network of social services–from housing to mental health care to addiction treatment to education–that prevents crime in the first place. Only 2 people spoke in favor of a new jail.

Supervisor Ellenberg had proposed a thorough referral with well-reasoned and evidenced arguments pointing out why the County should fund, implement and evaluate the impact of alternatives like expansion of behavioral health treatment outside of jail, expansion of county capacity for outpatient and community based mental health treatment and addiction recovery treatment before, if ever, pouring funds into in a new jail.  This proposal, which had been on the official agenda for public review and comment, was seconded by Supervisor Cindy Chavez, known for her commitment to seeking and implementing feedback from impacted communities.  After acknowledging significant flaws in the County staff’s recommendations and after voting down Ellenberg’s referral, three Supervisors supported a last-minute and hastily-crafted motion by Supervisor Lee to build a new maximum security jail and a forensic mental health facility (which included ad hoc amendments from the dias by Supervisor Otto Lee that the public had no chance to weigh in on).

At the end of the day, Supervisors Lee, Simitian and Wasserman, in direct opposition to thousands of community voices, voted to double down on incarceration in Santa Clara County. Their vote means that instead of two jails, the county will end up with four jails: Main Jail North, Elmwood, the new max security jail, and a forensic behavioral health facility.  In doing so, Supervisors Wasserman and Simitian demonstrated that their commitment to racial equity in June 2020 was just politically expedient symbolism.  And Supervisor Lee demonstrated that in fact the comments from the public were irrelevant to his decision-making.

The dozens of organizations that have fought for our County to fund true community safety instead of pouring money into a jail will continue to work together to fight for common sense preventative services–for Care First Jail Last–until they are no longer ignored, and will participate in the county-community Alternatives-to-Incarceration process.

For Immediate Release 

CONTACT: Jen Myhre | jenm@sacredheartcs.org | 408-550-5554 

Showing Up for Racial Justice Demands that Santa Clara County Supervisors Keep Racial Justice Promises to Halt New Jail 

The Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors is reconsidering its decision, in response to public outcry about racism in the criminal legal system during Summer 2020, to halt construction of a new jail in Santa Clara County. Moving forward with a new jail will signal an abandonment of the Board’s June 23 2020 Black Lives Matter resolution to eliminate systemic and institutional racial inequities in the county. 

Santa Clara County— In November 2020, the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors (BOS), in the wake of racial justice uprisings, voted to temporarily pause construction of a new jail and solicit community input. Currently, in 2021 the county is spending roughly $100,000 per incarcerated person per year in its jails, even though over 85% of people inside the jails are awaiting trial. People awaiting trial in the county, legally “innocent until proven guilty,” wait 9 months on average due to bureaucracy and the discretion of both the district attorney's office and judges. The proposed additional jail would cost $390 million to construct, not including ongoing operating costs. In November 2020, Silicon Valley De-Bug convened the Care First Jails Last coalition, which includes Showing Up for Racial Justice (SURJ) at Sacred Heart and many other community organizations, based on the principle that the county should invest in non-carceral alternatives to address the root issues that fuel incarceration. The Care First Coalition held the BOS accountable to conducting a robust community engagement process that centered the real experts on our jails--system impacted families. From July through October 2021, the county hosted input sessions, conducted focus groups and did surveys both inside the jails and in the community. Next week the BOS will consider moving forward with a new jail, despite the community input that makes clear that the public sees the need for alternatives. On June 23 2020, the Board passed a resolution in solidarity with Black Lives Matter in which they committed to dismantling systems of oppression and ensuring equity, inclusivity and social justice. SURJ at Sacred Heart believes that the jail system is one of those government institutions that results in systemic racial injustices. Through a series of large scale video projections onto buildings in Santa Clara County over the last week, SURJ at Sacred Heart is calling on the Board of Supervisors to keep the promises they made in their Black Lives Matter resolution and follow through on their commitment to dismantling systems of oppression by permanently halting construction of a new jail. 

Last week the county reported on the findings of the community input process at the Public Safety and Justice Committee on November 4th. A theme that came up both in focus groups conducted inside the jail and in the survey of randomly selected Santa Clara County voters was: a perceived need to reimagine justice, shifting away from putting people in jail in favor of preventative measures, alternatives to incarceration, and addressing the impact of structural racism. During public comment about the report SURJ at Sacred Heart member Lori Katcher commented, “Because of my privilege I have not experienced personally the negative impacts of incarceration. But I have been asking myself several questions. Who is disposable? And who is worthy of flourishing? Incarceration assumes that some people are disposable because it is clear that cages do not heal harms done, nor do they heal the people in the cages.” At a rally on November 7 organized by people in the jail and their loved ones, Raj Jayadev of Silicon Valley Debug reflected on the Public Safety and Justice Committee meeting saying, “Racial injustice is separating our families and communities. This is a challenge to all of us.” 

In their Black Lives Matter resolution the BOS affirmed that “to better understand the depths of the injuries of the present, we must acknowledge the histories of systemic racial injustices and the role government institutions continue to play.” Mountains of research documents the disproportionate devastation the criminal legal system has wreaked--by design--on black and brown communities. SURJ at Sacred Heart believes that permanently halting a new jail is a crucial step in dismantling systemic racism. The Board of Supervisors is expected to receive reports from county staff regarding questions and research, including community input, about the prospective new jail at their November 16 meeting and may make a decision that day about whether to move forward with it. SURJ at Sacred Heart is calling upon the Board of Supervisors to put real anti-racist policy change behind their words in the June 23, 2020 resolution. Rather than doubling down on a system that both doesn't work and also directly and disproportionately harms our Black and Brown neighbors, SURJ at Sacred Heart insists that now is the time for the county supervisors to invest in community based alternatives to pre-trial detention, as well as the social services and resources that produce real community safety. 

Showing Up for Racial Justice members will be projecting graphics onto the side of the Main Jail and hosting a press conference to expand on their demands. Details below. 

WHAT: Press Conference 
WHERE: San Pedro Street (near Hedding St) on the side of the current Main Jail (North) and adjacent to the empty construction site of the former Main Jail South 
WHEN: Friday November 12 at 5:30p.m.

Para publicación inmediata 

CONTACTO: 

Jen Myhre | jenm@sacredheartcs.org | 408-550-5554 

El grupo Showing Up for Racial Justice hace responsables a los supervisores del condado de Santa Clara por su compromiso con la justicia racial 

La Junta de Supervisores del Condado de Santa Clara está reconsiderando su decisión, en respuesta a la protesta pública sobre el racismo en el sistema legal penal durante el verano de 2020, de detener la construcción de una nueva cárcel en el condado de Santa Clara. Avanzar con una nueva cárcel señalaría el abandono de la resolución Black Lives Matter de la Junta del 23 de junio de 2020 para eliminar las desigualdades raciales sistémicas e institucionales en el condado. 

Condado de Santa Clara — En noviembre del 2020, a raíz de los levantamientos por la justicia racial, la Junta de Supervisores del Condado de Santa Clara (BOS) votó por poner una pausa en la construcción de una nueva cárcel y solicitar la opinión de la comunidad. Actualmente, en 2021, el condado gastará aproximadamente $100,000 por persona encarcelada por año en sus cárceles, a pesar de que más del 85% de las personas dentro de las cárceles están esperando juicio. Las personas que esperan juicio en el condado, legalmente "inocentes hasta que se demuestre su culpabilidad", esperan un promedio de 9 meses debido a la burocracia y la discreción tanto de la oficina del fiscal de distrito como de los jueces. La construcción de la cárcel adicional propuesta costaría $390 millones, sin incluir los costos operativos en curso. En noviembre de 2020, Silicon Valley De-Bug convocó a la coalición Care First Jails Last, que incluye Show Up for Racial Justice (SURJ) en Sacred Heart y muchas otras organizaciones comunitarias, basándose en el principio de que el condado debe invertir en alternativas no carcelarias para abordar las causas fundamentales que alimentan el encarcelamiento. La Coalición Care First responsabilizó al BOS de llevar a cabo un sólido proceso de participación comunitaria que centró a los verdaderos expertos en nuestras cárceles: las familias impactadas por el sistema. Desde julio hasta octubre de 2021, el condado organizó sesiones de comentarios, realizó grupos de enfoque y realizó encuestas tanto dentro de las cárceles como en la comunidad. La próxima semana, el BOS considerará avanzar con una nueva cárcel, a pesar de la opinión de la comunidad que deja en claro que el público ve la necesidad de alternativas. El 23 de junio de 2020, la Junta aprobó una resolución en solidaridad con Black Lives Matter en la que se comprometieron a desmantelar los sistemas de opresión y garantizar la equidad, la inclusión y la justicia social. SURJ en Sacred Heart cree que el sistema carcelario es una de esas instituciones gubernamentales que resulta en injusticias raciales sistémicas. A través de una serie de proyecciones a gran escala en edificios en el condado de Santa Clara durante la última semana, SURJ en Sacred Heart está pidiendo a la Junta de Supervisores que mantenga las promesas que hicieron en su resolución Black Lives Matter y que cumplan con su compromiso de desmantelar sistemas de opresión al detener permanentemente la construcción de una nueva cárcel.

La semana pasada, el condado informó sobre los hallazgos del proceso de participación de la comunidad en el Comité de Justicia y Seguridad Pública el 4 de noviembre. Un tema que surgió tanto en los grupos focales llevados a cabo dentro de la cárcel como en la encuesta de votantes del condado de Santa Clara seleccionados al azar fue: una necesidad percibida de reinventar la justicia, alejarse de poner a las personas en la cárcel a favor de medidas preventivas, alternativas al encarcelamiento y abordar el impacto del racismo estructural. Durante el comentario público sobre el informe Lori Katcher, una miembra de SURJ en Sacred Heart comentó: “Debido a mi privilegio, no he experimentado personalmente los impactos negativos del encarcelamiento. Pero me he estado haciendo varias preguntas. ¿Quién es desechable? ¿Y quién es digno de prosperar? El encarcelamiento asume que algunas personas son desechables porque está claro que las jaulas no curan los daños causados, ni curan a las personas en las jaulas." En un mitin el 7 de noviembre organizado por personas en la cárcel y sus seres queridos, Raj Jayadev de Silicon Valley Debug reflexionó sobre la reunión del Comité de Justicia y Seguridad Pública diciendo: “La injusticia racial está separando a nuestras familias y comunidades. Este es un desafío para todos nosotros." 

En su resolución Black Lives Matter, la BOS afirmó que "para comprender mejor las profundidades de las heridas del presente, debemos reconocer las historias de injusticias raciales sistémicas y el papel que siguen desempeñando las instituciones gubernamentales". Montañas de estudios e investigaciones documentan la devastación desproporcionada que el sistema de castigo criminal ha causado, por diseño, en las comunidades de gente negra y latina. SURJ en Sacred Heart cree que parar permanentemente la construcción de una nueva cárcel es un paso crucial para desmantelar el racismo sistémico. Se espera que la Junta de Supervisores recibirá informes de la administración del condado con respecto a preguntas e investigaciones, incluida la opinión de la comunidad, sobre la posible nueva cárcel en su reunión del 16 de noviembre y puede que tomen una decisión ese día sobre si seguir adelante con ella. SURJ en Sacred Heart está pidiendo a la Junta de Supervisores que ponga un cambio real en la política antirracista detrás de sus palabras en la resolución del 23 de junio de 2020. En lugar de replicar un sistema que no funciona y que también daña directa y desproporcionadamente a nuestros vecinos negros y latinos, SURJ en Sacred Heart insiste en que ahora es el momento para que los supervisores del condado inviertan en alternativas comunitarias al encarcelamiento para los que esperan juicio, así como los servicios y recursos sociales que producen una seguridad comunitaria real. 

Los miembros de Showing Up for Racial Justice proyectarán gráficos en el costado de Main Jail y organizarán una conferencia de prensa para ampliar sus demandas. Detalles abajo. 

QUE: Rueda de prensa 
DONDE: San Pedro Street (cerca de Hedding St) al costado de Main Jail North y adyacente al sitio de construcción vacío de la antigua Main Jail South 
CUANDO: Viernes 12 de noviembre a las 5:30 p.m.