By Teah, WISH member

I had no idea what to expect upon arrival at the juvenile detention facility for the “open house” as it was billed.  I was expecting to be shown around, hopefully able to see for myself these decrepit conditions that require a $210 million expenditure for all new, much larger facilities, probably with a facilitated question and answer session of some sort.  Following handing out some of our fliers showing really egregious statistics of those incarcerated in the facility and getting hassled by nervous looking security guards, the Facilities Director came outside to chat with us.  It was during this initial conversation that I was introduced to the themes of the day:  I have nothing to do with that-you should talk to this other person about that issue, everyone here really cares about these youth just like you, and we are already doing a really good job getting numbers down and we are really proud of ourselves.

Once through the metal detector I was able to get inside the small area that this event was actually to take place in.  In every direction there were various groups that have something to do with the functioning of the juvenile detention system in KingCounty.  There were court appointed advocates, representatives of various programs that take place within the juvie, alongside large diagrams showing the way the lot in question at 12th and Alder will be partitioned off and sold in bits to as yet undefined (or maybe just un-disclosed) developers.  Amid the different groups’ fliers and tri-fold display set-ups, there were signs detailing actual numerical steps for how to have a “Healthy Dialogue”.  I assumed these signs were in place to direct the youth that have meetings with their lawyers in that large open area (a fact I learned in the course of the day), until I saw these signs being taken down at the end of the event!  These signs were there for us!  Honestly with all the poster-board this event was set up more like a high school science fair than a real open forum to discuss anything substantive together with the ability to get answers.  Everyone was dealt with as individuals which seemed to make evading having to give legitimate answers more easy, since they could constantly deflect us to another person.  It is very important to understand this event for what it was, an attempt to look like the county is getting “community input” on this project.  That is total BS, especially when the statistical breakdown of who all was in there was something like 65% staff at the juvie/25% WISH/10% non-WISH community members.

Once inside I never really had a solitary moment.  People were approaching me consistently for the whole three hours as they seemed to be actively employing an outreach strategy to appear open.  It was eerie.    Throughout the course of the day I spoke with 4 judges, the Facilities Director and the Director of Juvenile Court Services.  I will minimally separate these individual interactions because each conversation I had went roughly the same way.

Questions I asked everyone I spoke to, and their answers:

Why is there such racial disparity in arrests, level of crime charged with, sentencing and incarceration rates for youth of color?

Every single person I spoke to immediately admitted that they knew of the statistics and that they were indeed horrible.  Lots of hand wringing.  At the beginning I would then ask “What is being done to address that?”  To which the inevitable answer would be some form of deflecting personal responsibility.  One judge would blamed mandatory sentencing guidelines, another let me know that they are not in charge of what individuals are charged with and that in order to address that it would actually be the King County Prosecutor that should be contacted, not them.  Others just plain pushed me off onto another person in the room who was “THE person to talk to about that”, but whom never actually was.  Some told me of horror stories where it was even worse in other parts of Washington, trying to create a false comparison.  Or they would bring up some self-congratulatory fact.  Or most annoyingly I got the wink wink, nudge nudge info that one of the judges used to be a public defender so they totally get it.  As the day went on and my frustration grew at having ALL my questions dodged, I started to ask them more pointedly about what their individual contribution to changing the disparity was if they knew about it?  I got excuses like – I am a judge and I have certain limitations to what I can say or do.  To which I replied that they do not have to send a statement on their letterhead out, but that they should have personal conversations with people who can actually do something about it.  I reminded them that in this instance they have more power than any of us average community members did and they needed to exercise this power.  You know wink wink, nudge nudge, since you get it right?

Had a similar conversation with the Director of Juvenile Court Services, same everything.  I know about the statistics, they are horrible, my job can not directly effect those statistics.  He mentioned diversity training classes, though he did not know who taught them beyond “some really great facilitators”.  One really gross example he did actually give of trying to address the disparity was within the Somali community in KingCounty.  According to him, in Somalia when you call the police, they come out to your house and act more as mediators who actually try to assess the issue and help resolve it.  For new immigrants to the United States who are used to that, they call the police here with totally incorrect assumptions about what is going to happen when the police show up.  Here, they are going to arrest your child or you!  And don’t forget the added stress of being an immigrant and having any sort of interaction with law enforcement potentially turn into “cause” for a removal hearing proceeding, for you or your child!  He told me about this, and about how they are doing outreach in those communities to better inform these Somali people what will happen.  Essentially encouraging those people NOT TO CALL THE POLICE!!!  I told him this sounded like victim blaming to me and why wasn’t he taking this issue up with the police themselves.  Can you guess what he said?  He said that wasn’t his job.  Grrrr.  Sick of this sham/pretend celebration that programs are working, but we are going to make a bigger youth jail anyway; I let him know that as a person who knew of the racial disparities in every category, it was up to him as a human being to call out racist behavior when he saw it by the police and others.  He looked sort of freaked out and I continued that it was not going to make him popular, but it had to be done and I did not care if it was technically his job, it was all of our jobs!  I know he won’t do anything differently, I just couldn’t listen anymore.

Why are there 154 beds planned for the new facility when the numbers of imprisoned youth are actually decreasing consistently? 

I consistently got the stock answer of how there needs to be flexibility to move people around inside.  There are divisions that must be made based on gender, potential conflicts with other imprisoned youth etc etc.  We have to be able to segregate these youth effectively.  The facilities Manager encouraged me to get in there and share my ideas with everyone else, and said it was not a “done deal yet”.  Only one person, a judge, admitted that they did not know why so many beds were needed.  They also told me that they had recently been to a visioning meeting where people were brainstorming about the new facility, and that some people there were trying to get some of the money actually put back into programs.  Let me be clear.  NONE of this $210 million is allocated for actual programs, it is for the facility ONLY.

What is so bad about conditions here?  Why is there need for a $210 million expenditure?

Each person again gave me the same examples:  mold, bursting pipes and a broken HVAC system that is “too hot in the summer, and too cold in the winter”.  When questioning the Facilities Manager about it , I asked her why the county was not instead going to just upgrade the aging systems and why it was that a new actual detention facility with 154 beds was needed too (especially given that the day of the open house there were only 43 youth in the facility!)?  She referenced some official report where they had crunched the numbers and said they found that it would cost $23 million dollars over the next 10 years to keep the facility running as is (she said not to quote her on that exact amount, I am currently following up with her to get a copy of whatever she was referencing, more info to follow soon) and she totally dodged the bed part of the question by encouraging us to go offer our community input to those inside.

Another person told me about how awful it was on the siblings of youth involved in the proceedings of the court there to be in such horribly cramped and hot or cold conditions.  To which I replied I did not believe that a nice new building was going to put little kids who know that there older brother or sister is dealing with something really scary that may result in them being taken away, any more ease than this building did.

I heard alot about how great the new facility would be generally, but only one of the judges actually described the plan more or less to me.  They described the new facility as a “one stop shop” for services.  Since there are sometimes interpreters (and sometimes not) there for court, wouldn’t it be great if when they have to come to court, they could also get hooked in with all these other undisclosed services.  When questioned further, the judge spoke about how none of the services will actually be housed in the new facility, that different providers would have “booths” around the room and that there would be people with specific shirts on to indicate that they were workers and that they would come over with laptops to help you schedule all of your necessary appointments.  T-SHIRTS AND LAPTOPS???  No services will be provided there, people will leave with appointments, that is it.  I asked how it was being done now and they just said that everything was more spread out.  But honestly, if all people are getting is appointments online, this system would essentially be no different than someone doing it themselves at the library (who’s hours are always getting cut too).  And of course, to get this additional assistance, you must first enter the criminal justice system.

Thankfully at the end of the day, the hands down best part happened when one of the WISH members unfurled a banner they had and made an impromptu speech about the racist roots of the police as slave catchers.  And called out the event for the waste of time that it was.  And said how everyone is so busy congratulating themselves to realize that they are the problem.  I was so happy this happened!  The day up to that point had been an incredibly frustrating, energy suck.  The very people that uphold the racist, classist youth detention system were so deluded that they are helping and really accomplishing something positive.  Don’t get me wrong, there were some programs that are more restorative justice based that sounded neat, but they are also drastically underfunded and will get no money from this levy.  The worst part though was how everyone was so hung up on their narrowly focused job to see that the whole system that is destroying families and communities is made up of individuals just like themselves who are “just doing their job”.  All these individual cogs in the wheel makes up a machine that targets, tears apart and destroys in a very intentional way against youth of color, immigrants, queers and poor people.

In the next month or so, there will be another open house.  I highly, highly encourage people to come out for this.  Now that we know what we are dealing with, I for one am not going to waste my breath on any of these people again.  No way!  Instead WISH is going to have an event outside of the facility where we can openly show our disdain for the current facility, the proposed facility and everyone who works there, whether they think they are helping or not (aside from volunteers that go in there and such).  More information about that to follow as soon as they release the next date.  Stay tuned!

Join the Coalition to Stop Caging Youth!

Points of Unity

1)  The current juvenile punishment system is racist and classist.

2)  Criminalization and imprisonment are devastating our families and communities, especially targeting and harming immigrants, poor people and people of color.

3) Imprisoning youth does not work—it consumes resources and harms youth, disrupts education and family connections, exposes them to abuse, creates negative long-term outcomes in their lives, and does not make our communities any better or safer.

4) We believe that all youth should have the education, health care, housing, food, art, music and freedom to grow and thrive.

5) We believe that there are many alternatives to criminalization and imprisonment—especially providing youth and families with the resources they need and getting at the root causes of poverty—that can actually help our communities heal and rebuild.

 The juvenile punishment and child welfare systems in King County are severely racially targeted.  Black youth are twice as likely as white youth to be arrested.  Black and native youth are more than twice as likely as white youth to be referred to court and youth of color are less likely to be referred to diversion programs.  Black youth make up only 6% of the Washington youth population but 21% of youth sentenced to Juvenile Rehabilitation Administration facilities.  In King County, Black and Native children together make up:

• 8 percent of the child population
• 25 percent of the children involved in referrals accepted for investigation
• 33 percent of all children removed from their homes and placed in care
• 50 percent of the children still in out-of-home care four years after placement

Once in the foster care system, youth face terrible outcomes–they are more unlikely to finish school, more likely to end up in the criminal system, and more likely to face poverty and homelessness.

The energy and resources being used to plan the rehabilitation of this facility should be redirected to creating programs that support youth and families in King County–child care, jobs, mental health support, drug treatment, arts programs, gardens, after school programs, income support and housing.  It isn’t just this dilapidated youth jail building that is dangerous for youth—being caged is dangerous to the physical and mental health of youth, harms their access to education, and has lasting negative effects in their lives.  This youth facility is outdated, and so is the model of locking up young people.  The dilapidation of these buildings is a crossroads for the County—we can choose to keep investing in a model that doesn’t work and that creates harm, or we can shut it down and shift toward supporting youth.

We are working to turn the tide in King County away from jail and court building and toward supporting youth and families.  By signing on to these Points of Unity, you would join other organizations that are making a stand against a plan that is bad for our County, and that was not created in consultation with affected communities.  

Please contact us if you would like to be added to the coalition or if you have any questions.

Contact Us:http://www.nonewyouthjail.wordpress.com/ http://www.facebook.com/WashingtonIncarcerationStopsHere    

HB 1096, a bill that guarantees a 10-day minimum sentence in juvenile detention for any juvenile found guilty of possessing a gun, is currently making its way through the Washington State House of Representatives.

In a recent conversation about the bill on City Inside/Out, Leno M. Rose-Avila, the director of Seattle’s new Office of Immigrant and Refugee Affairs, discussed his opposition to the bill, saying, “When we get punitive, we lose kids.” Instead, he suggests that we “plant seeds” by investing in what our communities really need –  education, the arts, food justice and health care.

Join us to fight this bill and defeat the new youth jail at our weekly meeting this Thursday at 7pm at Washington Hall!

Thanks to everyone who joined us at our January 10th art-making and potluck meeting and at our street info-sharing outside of Michelle Alexander’s King County Bar Association MLK Luncheon on January 18th!  Please join us any time for one of our meetings, Thursdays at 7pm at Washington Hall.

Please help spread the word about the fight to stop HB 1096, a bill that would make imprisonment mandatory for any juvenile found guilty of possessing a gun.  Here is some info from a useful background document put out by the ACLU, which opposes HB 1096.

Study after study shows exactly what works to reduce gang violence—spend money funding community-based programs that help keep young people out of gangs in the first place, rather than on incarceration. . . This bill’s jail-based approach would lock up youth in a juvenile facility for weeks, months, or even years, cutting them off from critical resources—such as family members, jobs, sports, and school—needed to stay out of gang life. . . . Juvenile gun crime is down in King County. Juvenile filings have dropped almost 50% since 2000, while violent crime (assault and robbery) has dropped significantly between 2010 and 2011. . . Second degree violent use of a firearm has dropped by a third between 2010 and 2011. . . . The fiscal note details huge costs for this bill—possibly over $5 million, in a time when every budget dollar is stretched thin. By contrast, last year, the legislature provided only $250,000 for prevention and intervention services. If we are serious about reducing youth violence, we have our priorities exactly backward. Let’s reject HB 1096’s failed approach, and fund successful prevention programs instead.

Mandatory minimum sentencing has been one of the engines of rapid prison growth and mass incarceration over the last several decades.  We have to stand up to it in WA!  We don’t need new laws that mandate imprisonment for youth, ruining lives, and we don’t need a new jail for youth in King County. Its time to focus on alternatives, on supporting arts, education, health care, child care and all the things our communities need, and stop planning ways to jail our youth!

Hello!

Our meeting times have changed to Thursdays at 7pm, still at Washington Hall. We’re having a special dinner and art-making meeting on Thursday, January 10 at 7pm at Washington Hall to prepare for a street demonstration on January 18 at the Downtown Sheraton Hotel in Seattle at 11:30am.  That day, Michelle Alexander, author of The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, will be the keynote speaker at the King County Bar Association’s Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Luncheon.

We think its a great opportunity to let people who care about resisting racism and criminalization know that our County is planning to build a new jail for youth and we’ve got to stop it.  Michelle Alexander’s book has gotten enormous attention because a lot of people are realizing that our prison system is a monstrous, racist nightmare that has been growing wildly for the last few decades.  Here in Seattle, we have a chance to stop one of the frontiers of that growth by stopping the building of this new youth jail. Please join us on the 10th for dinner and art-making, and please join us on the 18th to help spread the word about stopping this jail building project.

Greetings! Our meetings continue to be at Washington Hall on Tuesday evenings 6-8. Please come join our fight to stop a new youth jail from being built in Seattle!  On Tuesday, September 25 we will be attending the event below, at which Dede, who called our first meeting, will be speaking.  Please join us there!

Collateral Consequences: The War on Drugs, Women, Families and Communities September 25, 2012

Join Surge Northwest for an educational forum to explore attitudes and actions regarding the War on Drugs, and what the passage of Initiative 502 would mean for Washington communities of color.

Tuesday, September 25, 2012

Reception: 6-6:30pm; Program 6:30-8pm

A light dinner will be served

Southside Commons, 3518 S Edmunds, Seattle, WA

The results are in and 46.59% of King County voters rejected the new jail project, but overall it was approved.  We are enthusiastic about the number of people who rejected this measure–the outrageous “Yes for Children and Families” campaign clearly did not fool everyone.  Yes, King County youth are locked up in a dangerously decrepit facility as part of a racist, abusive system that destroys their lives.  Should we invest further in caging our youth and tearing apart families of color with relentless criminalization? NO! We need to abandon this harmful approach and start focusing on supporting the well being of youth through things that actually work like income support, arts and cultural programs, child care, community organizing, gardens, health care, and housing.

Our group will be continuing this fight–we’re not ready to lay down and let the County sell more public land to private developers to further gentrify the Central District and displace black families. We’re not ready to watch King County make another big investment in punishment, banking on a future of imprisoning youth of color and youth in poverty.  We refuse to watch the County invest in shinier, fancier facilities for terminating parental rights of black and native families and putting youth into a foster care system that destroys their futures.  King County is right about one thing–the current youth jail is no place for youth and should be shut down.  We are in full support of its demolition. But that land should not be used for condos and a fancy new jail and dependency courts–those things do not make our communities safe and they do not reduce violence–they are violence.  More to come….