In the midst of an unprecedented budget crisis which has caused devastating cuts in healthcare, housing, education and employment needs, the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors is considering investing billions of public dollars into the worst possible response to a community in need \u2014 incarceration.<\/p>\n
The proposal from the County Executive\u2019s Office to be heard at the Aug. 25 board meeting<\/a> is to make a $1 billion infusion as part of a larger transformation plan of our carceral facility, costing potentially $2.5 billion once it\u2019s fully operational 15 years from now. It would give Santa Clara County the dubious distinction of owning the most expensive carceral facility in the country.<\/p>\n It is hard to conceptualize the magnitude of making a such an enormous budgetary decision today that will be realized for Santa Clara County residents a generation from now, and the impact in the years in between. Every conversation the county has every year now about what to do about the housing crisis, mental needs, the impact of the rising cost of living, would be weighted by the anchor of a multibillion-dollar commitment to jails.<\/p>\n This plan is a commitment today that seals the fate of the future for Santa Clara County. Schools are closing<\/a> for kids who are in elementary school today, as a jail may be invested in to hold them when they reach adulthood. It is a striking legacy for a generation to leave, and one that would be brick and mortar well after the supervisors who may approve this decision have termed out, and may have moved beyond public life.<\/p>\n As much as this \u201cjail transformation plan\u201d is about the future, it is fueled by failures of the past<\/a>. It is the county response to an ongoing story of human rights abuses, hunger strikes and lawsuits that have plagued the jails for years. The treatment of who the county was detaining became so intolerable the county entered a federal consent decree<\/a> in 2019 as a way to settle a class action lawsuit. The decree mandates the county abide by basic legal standards regarding medical care, Americans with Disabilities Act compliance and overall conditions. But nowhere in the consent decree does it require the creation of a new jail structure, or state the county has to lock into a 15-year financial behemoth.<\/p>\n The fixation on incarceration for the future is also in contrast with the rest of the county\u2019s political sensibilities of the present. Santa Clara County has invested\u00a0in non-police crisis response teams<\/a> to assist those who have mental health needs, pre-arraignment release units<\/a> at the public defender\u2019s office to get people out of jail, even created a whole community informed plan of alternatives to incarceration.<\/p>\n These investments are working. As of Aug. 18, the daily jail population was 2,404, according to the Sheriff\u2019s Office. Those numbers are significantly lower than they have been in years and are continuing to trend in that direction.<\/p>\n