We are a Coalition of concerned Cuyahoga County residents asking for a halt to the plans to construct a new jail in our community and a refocusing of priorities and funding to care-centered alternatives to incarceration.

Cuyahoga County has a problem, and it's one that we know cannot be solved with a new jail. Right now we have a large number of people in need of care and attention by County services. In Cuyahoga County we are struggling with high recidivism rates, a population of nearly 1,700 homeless individuals who could be counted, and a current general jail population of over 1,450.

We know that you are using these numbers to support the argument that we need to build a bigger jail, costing an estimated $550 million, and to create and populate a diversion center for people with mental health crises (a facility police are failing to use). But consider this...

We are living in an era where large cities across the country, from Los Angeles to New York City, are stopping their jail projects and reducing the number of people incarcerated, searching for care-centered alternatives. Why would you want to drag us backwards by building a costly, unnecessary and unwanted new jail?

You have been rushing to execute this plan even as news reports allege conflicts of interest and insider deals regarding the jail site selection process. This jail would be the largest taxpayer expense in county history. You don't even have up-to-date data to support any argument for needed capacity. We the people are asking ourselves, who benefits from rushing this project through? Who is profiting from this at the expense of people's lives?

At the very least, it seems that Cuyahoga County Executive Armond Budish thinks this some kind of monument to his term as Executive, but does he want to be remembered for wasting taxpayer money on a boondoggle that will make no one safer or healthier?

Spend money on alternatives and renovations

We say no! And we need the County to listen. We need all county officials to stop wasting time and money on this jail project and to shift attention and priorities to the existing issues within facilities and services that serve unfortunate members of our community.

We call on the county to address these root causes of our community’s desperation through offering comprehensive job training, the creation of pathways to a living wage, and offering robust, free health services. The money proposed to be spent on the proposed new jail building project could be much more effectively invested in affordable housing. Our service providers for those providing services to people experiencing homelessness or overburdened and underfunded. Lack of affordable housing - both throughout our community and especially for those in reentry - may greatly impact people entering the criminal justice system, and the recycling back through the system.

For instance, we need you to invest in affordable and supportive housing as a foundation for community stability. We need to invest in Care Response models that intervene in moments of crisis without police and usher people through the continuum of care to address their mental and physical health needs. We need to invest in pretrial services to assist people with the legal counsel they need. We need to support the end of cash bail. We need to invest in community based re-entry services for people exiting the jail, supporting people to better integrate back into their families and communities. We need to invest in economic opportunities for long exploited neighborhoods, in equitable transit, in our schools, and our libraries: we need to invest in our future.

And at the same time, we have to fix the systemic, structural, material and behavioral problems that have rendered our County Jail “one of the worst Jails in the entire country” according to US Marshals. For more than 100 years, we have consistently been found to have one of the worst jails in the country. Each time, our elected officials have promised us that a new jail building would solve all our problems. Each time we built a new jail building, instead of addressing the real underlying problems. Each time the new building just made the same ongoing problems look a little better for a while, but each time we were soon again one of the worst jails in the country. A new building woill not solve the problems identified in the Marshals report.

Then we need to compassionately and fully assess and treat the mental health issues within our community members moving through the criminal justice system. This means an overhaul of the whole system, for instance: - We need a court system that can better understand mental health and substance use needs in order to help create effective roadmaps to services. Jail and courts and supportive and clinical staff need to do proper intake to document mental health and substance abuse issues in order to ensure those people get needed services while incarcerated.

This would greatly reduce capacity needed for the current jail. Estimates of capacity needed for the Proposed jail building project was likely based on data from before the diversion center opened. These estimates were also before we proved we can safely reduce jail population, as we did reduce jail population by about half due to COVID public health concerns. Pending Bail reform may also reduce any needed capacity.

We need to deal with the staffing and behavioral issues that may cause - many of the problems in the current jail These are not issues that will go away with the construction of a new building: they are personnel problems that need to be solved through effective and humane management, training, and oversight. Ensuring that staff are appropriately trained and supervised, that there is an independent grievance process, strict disciplinary standards for misconduct, and transparent and constant reporting are the baseline of operations that we need for the existing jail.

We need the County to know this, and make decisions while holding it in their minds: the many people imprisoned in the county jail are our sisters and brothers, mothers and sons - they are members of our community. They did not and do not start off as criminals or repeat offenders and should not be looked at as problems to be solved by cages, but as people who made unfortunate choices and who long to be productive and return to their families, workplaces, and lives. Both the current jail and proposed structure do nothing to support rehabilitation or care and actively support the creation of repeat offenders.

We call on the county to address these root causes of our community’s desperation through offering comprehensive job training, the creation of pathways to a living wage, and offering robust, free health services. The money proposed to be spent on the proposed new jail building project could be much more effectively invested in affordable housing. Our service providers for those providing services to people experiencing homelessness or overburdened and underfunded. Lack of affordable housing - both throughout our community and especially for those in reentry - may greatly impact people entering the criminal justice system, and the recycling back through the system.

It is your duty to ensure that community members returning from jail are able to integrate safely and well into life, and all resources sent to jail should support that. We know that our neighbors, residents from Westlake to Cleveland and from North Royalton to Euclid, don't deserve or want their neighbors returning as more desperate, angry and hopeless people.

Moving forward

We, the people of Cuyahoga, want a real say in the proceedings on this project. We know that the County Officials have not equitably or fairly engaged us, and as such the voices of taxpayers, care-givers, and affected communities have not been respected.

As of now, the County has attempted to push this jail project through as quickly and privately as possible. We think it undemocratic that the County has hosted meetings when most are at work and would have a difficult time making it into the city. This has paved the way for little to no awareness or opposition of not only its construction but of which set of residents will be forced to live near it and be affected by all that a jail in your neighborhood brings with it. We offer a complete change of procedure for this jail project, post haste.

There are alternatives that work and would cost us less while gaining our community so much more in the long term. Halt the planned construction of a new jail that benefits only the contractors who in turn look out for the politicians who made this possible.

In coalition we ask this of you, and would be happy to speak with you about how best to move forward to care-centered alternatives to incarceration and the halting of the costly, unneeded, and problematic new jail project.

Sincerely,