VIDEO and STORIES: No One Wants Santa Clara To Prioritize Incarceration Over Community Needs

Editor's Note: The Santa Clara County Executive's Office is asking the Board of Supervisors to approve a plan to invest a $1 Billion dollar installment of what they say will ultimately be a $2.5 Billion dollar investment into the jails. The "Jail Transformation Plan" includes building a new facility and will be operating 15 years from now. Below are written pieces as well as word on street responses taken in front of the jail.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TEeXQwJmu_I

As a Mother in Santa Clara County, Invest in Schools Not Jails for our Children's Future

Nerely Campos

Santa Clara County should not be investing $2.5 billion in a new jail while schools in our communities are being closed because they cannot afford to stay open. Since 2024, four school districts in San Jose have announced school closures due to serious budget challenges. This resulted in 17 schools closing in the last two years. All while at the same time, we are being told there is not enough funding to keep classrooms open and that billions of dollars are now being considered for a new jail. 

This is personal for me. Last year, my own son was affected when his school closed. I saw firsthand what it means for my child and so many others to lose their school, their teachers, their friends, and the community where he grew up in. I can't help but think about the message we are sending. That we are closing schools for 9 year olds today while preparing to spend billions building a jail that could be waiting for them when they turn 18. What does that say about our priorities. Instead of investing in incarceration, we should be investing in our children now. Invest in their education, mental health, families, housing, and opportunities that keep them from ever entering the pipeline to the criminal justice system.

A new jail is not an investment in public safety. If Santa Clara County has billions of dollars, that investment should be spent on building our schools and communities, not in building a bigger system of incarceration. Our children deserve to grow up in a place that plans for their success not their imprisonment. 

Santa Clara County Public Health Care Worker: Address the Needs of Our People Anonymous

As a Santa Clara County public health care worker, learning about the county's plan to spend $2.5 billion dollars on a jail is infuriating and undermining to the county's safety net. 

As this board is well aware, us healthcare workers did not get a wage increase this year. To no surprise, cost of living this past year has skyrocketed. The price of food, for example, continued to rise increasing by 4.3 percent this year, gas for transportation, and increasing rent, among other things. Those rises indeed have a domino effect. 

We are also part of the same community. As a health care worker, knowing we provide life-saving services for this county’s patients, the proposal of building a jail makes me question the county’s ability to sustain us by ensuring that we are able to afford the cost of living. The County has turned a blind eye by not committing to their workers safety that provides a viable and equitable living. Rather than addressing all the needs of our community, and responding to the increasing cost of living, the County wants to invest billions into incarceration. Regardless of where the money is coming from, the bottom line is that the will to build a jail should not overshadow health care workers' means of survival, allowing our wages to be affected, which could have had the same effort that it took to prioritize a jail.

My Son Was Housed in the Jail, and I Worry for the Future Generation the Proposed Jail is For

By Cynthia Dalcourt

I am concerned about the proposed planning and excessive cost for jail transformation plan, which included building a new facility. As a mother and grandmother of Black children, I am afraid for their well being. 

My son was housed in the main jail for 3 year and he told me that he did not think he was going to make it home alive. He feared that he was going to die inside the main jail. A new building will not prevent the systemic racism and harsh treatment that occurs inside the jails.

I’m afraid because you are building a new jail that will target my children and others that look like them. Money should be put into education and other training that will help secure their future. 

Men are being released from CDCR. A lot of them spent excessive time behind bars because they did not have the financial means to fight their cases. Now you are planning to build a new jail and fill it with their grandchildren.

Working with Silicon Valley De-Bug, I have talked to parents whose loved ones were not allowed to take any classes in the main jail to get their High School Diploma. What about focusing on the programming in the jail that will help young men and women take classes.

During my visits to the jail, I noticed it was always filthy. It seems that no thought and little money have been given to cleaning and sanitary conditions in the jail. 

During Covid, people in the jail were not immediately given masks and gloves for their safety. To get clean new masks and gloves they had to beg. There was and is no concern for the safety of people in jail. A new jail will not change this environment. A new jail will not change this treatment.

The money you are spending for a new jail can be used to help our community in other ways. We voted for you to represent us and we said we do not want a new jail.