Jayadev: Santa Clara County shouldn’t invest billions of dollars in its jail facilities

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 — incarceration.

The proposal from the County Executive’s Office to be heard at the Aug. 25 board meeting 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’s 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.

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.

This plan is a commitment today that seals the fate of the future for Santa Clara County. Schools are closing 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.

As much as this “jail transformation plan” is about the future, it is fueled by failures of the past. 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 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.

The fixation on incarceration for the future is also in contrast with the rest of the county’s political sensibilities of the present. Santa Clara County has invested in non-police crisis response teams to assist those who have mental health needs, pre-arraignment release units at the public defender’s office to get people out of jail, even created a whole community informed plan of alternatives to incarceration.

These investments are working. As of Aug. 18, the daily jail population was 2,404, according to the Sheriff’s Office. Those numbers are significantly lower than they have been in years and are continuing to trend in that direction.

And ironically, the county’s leadership have united (rightfully so) in fighting the construction of another carceral facility — a proposed ICE facility in South County. That same moral obligation to be against family separation, racist detentions and human rights violations also apply here in opposing an investment in a county-run jail. It is a contradiction to be against one structure of incarceration, while investing billions of dollars in another.

If the county wants to make this generational decision that implicates all of us, they should let us decide. Ask the voters if they would approve this billion-dollar-plus plan.

Raj Jayadev is executive director of Silicon Valley De-Bug, a racial justice organization based in San Jose.