Action Description
The Madison Area chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America (MADSA) is mobilizing its members and our community to pressure the Dane County Board of Supervisors to end the jail expansion project. A majority of the supervisors are newly elected as of April 2020 and have never voted on the jail project. This, and the introduction of Supervisor Elizabeth Doyle’s resolution to end the jail (Resolution 145) present a fresh opportunity to stop the jail and invest in the health and wellbeing of our community. MADSA will be putting out action steps on a weekly basis in coordination with other anti-racist community groups. We will focus on strategically contacting new supervisors and persuading them of the urgency of stopping the jail.

People who are Black, Indigenous, and People of Color are disproportionately separated from their families and communities and locked away in the Dane County Jail. The pandemic has shown us that Dane County is able to reduce its jail population far below previous numbers. Instead of spending hundreds of millions of dollars on more space to lock people away, we want the County Board to spend our money building up the community. To fight the jail expansion is to prioritize the well being of POC in Dane county. We do not want to expand capacity in our jails - we want to keep them to a minimum while providing people in Dane County with the resources they need to thrive.