Did you know that King county is building a new youth jail in the community of Central District?
King county officials have decided to move forward with building the new youth jail, despite the protest and the lawsuits being faced. The new youth jail will be replacing the old facility that was build in the 1950’s. The county is hoping that the new facility will house 112 inmate beds and have new court rooms, they are referring to it as a “Children and Family justice center”. According to the county this new youth jail is needed because the old one is falling apart and is not healthy at all for the inmates currently there. Along with that the county is mandated by the state to have a juvenile jail, if there was no juvenile jail then juveniles would be getting sent to adult jails but the county and the state do not want to do that, therefor they have to create juvenile jails.
Activist though strongly disagree. Since the vote went through to build the new youth jail there has been protest against it. Building a new youth jail would just continue the school to prison pipeline, especially in the neighborhood of the Central District, where the population is mostly low income African American. Activist are trying to get the county to stop the construction and instead use the money for alternative measures. Activist are fighting for Zero detention and instead reconstruction of the communities that are being targeted by this unjust system that we call our criminal justice system. Nikkita Oliver, one of the leaders of this movement has had this to say about the construction of the new youth jail
“No one has said that we need to go in today and close down the old facility. We acknowledged some repairs of that facility need to happen in order to ensure that it’s a healthy place to be. What we are saying is that by investing $233 million in a new facility, we’re actually investing in a system that uses incarceration, and a punitive system as a means of getting people to pro-social behavior; we know that system doesn’t work.
“We spend $243 million a year on things like Best Starts for Kids, community service providers, employment and education resources, housing and community development, mental health and drug dependency—far less than the amount of money we actually spend on jails, the sheriff and prosecution…We spend $638 million a year on jails and prosecution…We’re building a facility, used to cage and incarcerate young people, that costs $233 million. It’s actually going to set us up for the next 50 years to continue doing exactly what we’ve been doing.”(Kuow.org)
It is important that we as a society take care of one another and support movements/organizations that improve our communities instead of harm them, the construction of the new youth jail is something that will deeply harm our community. This is just a very short over of the issue/debate if you would like to know more visit : https://www.seattle.gov/council/meet-the-council/bruce-harrell/no-new-yo…
If you would like to get involved visit: https://nonewyouthjail.com/