No To Investing In Incarceration: De-Bug's Public Comment Against Santa Clara County's Proposed 2.5 Billion Dollar Investment into the Carceral System
- SV De-Bug
- 11 minutes ago
- 3 min read
Editor's Note: The Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors are voting on whether or not to spend 1 billion installment of potentially 2.5 billion of our dollars on incarceration instead of schools, housing, healthcare, and other urgent community needs. This is a public comment letter to the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors rejecting the proposed investment into carceral facilities, including building a new booking facility. The letter was submitted to the Public Safety and Justice Committee where De-Bug organizers also gave public comment. To view the in-person public comment, you can watch here.
August 11, 2026
To: Santa Clara County Public Safety and Justice Committee (Supervisor Lee and
Supervisor Ellenberg)
From: Silicon Valley De-Bug Community
Re: Item #5 - 2.5 Billion Dollar Investment into Carceral System
Silicon Valley De-Bug is comprised of, and advocates for, the communities this county’s carceral system has targeted, held, and harmed. We strongly oppose approving and accepting the report from the County Executive’s Office recommending the county commit $2.5 billion dollars to the construction of a new jail. Particularly given the unprecedented budgetary crisis this county is in - the cuts in healthcare, education, social services, and infrastructure needs - to even entertain the idea of prioritized incarceration is offensive to our community, and is a serious departure from the leadership our county needs.
To give historical context, the communities De-Bug is a part of has unequivocally, and consistently, opposed the construction of a new jail since the concept first was brought up in 2020. Since that time, every few years, the county has gone through rounds of asking the community’s opinion on whether or not the county should build a new jail, and if so, what that jail should look like. At every opportunity, in multiple forms of response - the community overwhelmingly declared they did not want the construction of a new jail. This input was shared through surveys of hundreds of people collected by consultancy firms contracted by the county, in person and virtual gatherings, county volunteer commissions like the Alternatives to Incarceration Committee, and from asking the currently incarcerated and their families.
Despite this clear and unchanging message, the County Executive Office has continued its plan, unaffected by the public’s answer to the question they themselves posed. Community voice simply did not matter. This current presentation is an affront to those in the community who engaged in these previous input gatherings in good faith.
We oppose this new jail plan on the same grounds as the last eight years. Investing in incarceration does not lead to community safety, and in fact, only jeopardizes the health and well-being of the county’s most vulnerable - those with mental health needs, the impoverished, and disproportionately people of color. But to ask the County to approve a plan to invest 2.5 billion dollars for the construction of a jail system that will be operationally in 2035 - would be a generational failure. To think that this generation of elected officials would have an impulse to seal the fate of today’s children by investing in a jail that would cage them as adults - and make us the public pay for it - is abhorrent.
Instead of thinking of building a jail for the future of Santa Clara County, electeds should be listening to community and invest in the creation of community institutions that support the success and well-being of our community of tomorrow. The blueprints and cost projections we should be looking at during a Public Safety and Justice meeting should be of health centers, schools, social service support systems.
This committee’s leaders - Supervisor Ellenberg and Supervisor Lee - as well the rest of the County’s leadership, have been rightfully and vocally opposed to the construction of a new ICE facility in Santa Clara County, as we are. That same logic, moral obligation, and leadership demand of standing against family separation, of racist detentions, of human rights violations also apply here in opposing a new jail. It is a contradiction to oppose one form of incarceration of our people, while investing billions in another.
We urge you to stand with the community, and the future of Santa Clara County, in not making this seismic mistake of investing in incarceration. Our Santa Clara County community cannot tolerate jail construction as the legacy of this generation and we call on you to stand with us.
Sincerely,
Raj Jayadev
Organizer, Silicon Valley De-Bug
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