Last November the people of Hamilton County, with a 57-43 percent vote, resoundingly defeated a proposal to finance a new jail through a regressive sales tax. But for the Democratic Party, democracy is apparently not an important value. County commissioners Todd Portune and David Pepper have proposed another version of the jail, also to be financed by a regressive sales tax, and they plan to pass it no matter what the public thinks.
If they can, they'll hold a special election in August, when few turn out, especially fewer working class whites and African Americans. But if the state legislature won't permit an August election, they'll simply hold a vote of the county board and pass the measure 2-1 without Republican Commissioner Pat DeWine. The people be damned.
If they should pass the jail tax with an August election or without a referendum, Portune and Pepper would be not only ignoring the views of their constituents but also demonstrating their contempt for the democratic process. No doubt the voters will remember. DeWine's opposition, narrowly focused on the tax increase, provides no alternative. We are leaderless.
Portune and Pepper plan to build a new jail that will create 800 new beds. But this time around, influenced by the successful No Jail Tax campaign last year, they've adopted a more humane rhetoric that talks about services for mental health and substance abuse. Yet their jail doesn't represent a humanistic approach but is rather a conservative and bureaucratic plan based on the notion that social problems can be resolved through police and jails. Most disturbing, it's a plan without a vision of another, better Cincinnati.
From the beginning, whether in the earlier version of Republican Paul Heimlich or now in the new version of Democrats Portune and Pepper, the need for a new jail has been predicated upon the notion that crime must increase and jail space must be expanded. Yet Cincinnati's population has been falling since 1950, and the county's has been declining since 1970. Why, if the population is falling, do they think that crime must increase? What does that proposition tell us about the vision of the Democratic majority on the Hamilton County Board of Commissioners?
It tells us they're social pessimists and political reactionaries. Crime must increase and more jails must be built because Cincinnati can't provide all of our students with a first class education, can't provide our citizens with rewarding and well-paid jobs and can't create a society free from racial discrimination. More jail beds must be built because we don't provide adequate social support to children and families, and we don't have the facilities to take care of the mentally ill and those addicted to drugs and alcohol.
Who are the prisoners in Hamilton County Jail? They are the same people who will be found in jails around the world: working people, the poor and racial minorities. Two-thirds of jail prisoners are black and one-third white. Over half are unemployed, while the rest work in construction, in industry or in services. Many are high school graduates, though a significant percent have not completed high school. These are people whom we as a society have failed. Pepper and Portune apparently presume that we will continue to fail them, that we cannot eliminate the conditions that create criminals rather than productive citizens.
This is part of a disturbing national trend. Nationally and locally, incarceration rates have risen by more than 150 percent in the past 30 years. Our country and our county have decided that, rather than making a better society we'll make more jails and prisons. A disproportionate numbers of those incarcerated will be African-American men.
But is crime really increasing? According to the report prepared for the county by Voorhis Associates, there has actually been a decrease in the number of offenses in the county. At the same time, however, there has been an increase in the more violent offenses, related primarily to weapons and drugs. But as that study states, "While index crimes will have an impact on the pretrial population of the jail, their real impact tends to be on the prison system, particularly violent crimes." That is, those who commit serious and violent crimes don't go to jail; they go to prison.
Most in jail aren't violent criminals but people accused of petty crimes and misdemeanors. Many really aren't criminals at all. Because our society doesn't know what else to do with them, we also jail the homeless, the mentally ill, drug addicts and alcoholics. The failure to provide appropriate treatment facilities for substance abusers and the mentally ill and to create homes for the homeless represents one of the principal causes of jail "overcrowding."
In March the Cincinnati City Council voted 7-2 to continue to criminalize the possession of marijuana, contributing to overcrowding in the jail. No one in government has the courage to say that the legalization, government management and medical supervision of drugs would immediately and drastically reduce the crime and violence in our cities by putting the drug dealers out of business.
Well, if we don't build a new jail, what is to be done? No Jail Tax PAC (nojailtax.org) made these arguments last November: First, create a more efficient jail, for example with a night court so more prisoners can make bail. Second, create more treatment centers for substance abuse and more facilities for the mentally ill. Third, invest in homes for the homeless rather than incarcerating them.
Most important, we need another vision for Cincinnati, one that will improve education, create jobs and strengthen families and communities. Until then we should say, "No Justice, No Jail."
Dan La Botz is a writer, teacher and activist. His column appears the fourth issue of each month.
