The crisis in Cuyahoga County is not the result of just benign negligence, but years of mismanagement, intentional overcrowding, unethical judicial practices, and coercive plea deals. It was intentionally designed to build flourishing careers for those at the top of this system, treating poor and vulnerable residents like cash cows, traumatizing and abusing them along the way.

The inhumanity and abuse of power within the Cuyahoga County jail and criminal justice system is also not without a larger context. White supremacy and mass incarceration in America, an extension of legalized slavery, are systems that exist to maintain deeply inequitable classes of citizens in the United States. Hundreds of years of systemic and sanctioned racial oppression and brutality have resulted in the development of the criminal justice system as we know it, resulting in the disproportionate filling of our jails and prisons with People of Color.

The conditions within Cuyahoga County jail system violate the First, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution. The people in charge have known about the inhumane conditions and constitutional violations for years, yet have failed to remedy the deplorable state of affairs in a timely or effective manner.

To that end, the Coalition to Stop the Inhumanity at the Cuyahoga County Jail is demanding immediate change and accountability and that no new jail be built in Cuyahoga County!

1. Bring all the Cuyahoga County Jails, including the one at the “Justice” Center, the Juvenile Detention Center, Euclid, and Bedford Hts., into compliance with the "Minimum Standards for Jails in Ohio".

2. Provide full access to healthcare services. Immediately end the deprivation of resources, including food, water, and medicine/medical services.

3. End the transfer of children to adult correctional facilities.

4. Increase funding to support reentry support services: Implement policies and approaches that link those reentering society with the treatment, housing, employment, they need.

5. End the use of criminal history in determining eligibility for housing, education, licenses, voting, loans, employment, and other services and needs.

6. Carry out swift implementation of bail reform.

7. Begin systematic data collection, reporting, and transparency.

8. Set up independent oversight, governed and led by a committee of affected community members, over the Criminal Justice Reform Task Force.

The Coalition to Stop the Inhumanity at the Cuyahoga County Jail:

Black Lives Matter Cleveland, Black On Black Crime, Inc., Carl Stokes Brigade, Cleveland Lead Safe Network, Cuyahoga County Progressive Caucus (CCPC), Democratic Socialists of America - Cleveland, Imperial Women Coalition, InterReligious Taskforce on Central and South America Cleveland (IRTF), New Voices Cleveland, Northeast Ohio Black Health Coalition, Ohio Organizing Collaborative, Ohio Student Association,  Puncture the Silence-Stop Mass Incarceration, Refuse Fascism Cleveland, Showing Up for Racial Justice (SURJ) NEO, Survivors/Victims of Tragedy, Inc., Tamir E. Rice Foundation