Why Seattle doesn't need another jail.

[eridani]

http://horsesass.org/?p=14655

City Council member Nick Licata explains why Seattle doesn’t need to build a new jail. Of all the places where we could be saving money right now, this is one of the most obvious. A Citizen’s Initiative has already been launched to find alternatives to building a new jail.

Back in January, Real Change hosted an event to air opposition to the plan. The video below contains some very insightful comments from Seattle middle school teacher Jesse Hagopian about how much we value prisons vs. schools:

The issue of our ever-expanding prison population is finally coming to the fore, thanks to courageous politicians like Jim Webb, who recognize that it’s nothing short of a tragic failure that America has the world’s largest prison population by far. The fact that even here in “progressive” King County we’re looking at fixing a potential shortage of jail beds by trying to spend money on a new jail - rather than re-evaluating why we’re trying to arrest so many people for minor non-violent offenses in the first place - gives us a good idea of how entrenched in our political system this failure has become.

(more at the link)

[The empressof all]

1. The King County is Second to Western State hospital...

The Jail is second to Western State hospital in housing individuals with mental illness and dual disorders.

http://www.metrokc.gov/council/mentalhealth/index.htm

We don't have enough political will or community tolerance to house the public inebriates, or individuals with schizophrenia who exhibit active symptomatology but do not fit involuntary commitment.

The sad part is that Seattle is far better in providing services than most major urban areas.

[eridani]

2. What seems really silly--

--is that jail is a very expensive way of dealing with this problem.