Struggle over new jail heats up

The fight against a proposed new Denver City jail is at its peak, with the vote on it scheduled for early May. Some of the jail’s opponents have banded together in a broad coalition called Denver City Residents for Responsible Spending, and some in this coalition are even calling on the city to review alternatives for a cheaper jail or repairs on the existing city and county jail.

However, the Committee of Resistance to Jails, Prisons and War has taken a stand against jails on principle and recognizes that any expenditure on incarceration will be a blow to the throngs of poor workers and people of color.

Recently, Denver mayor and millionaire restaurateur John Hickenlooper was named one of the five top mayors in the country by Time magazine. One feat credited to him is the elimination of a $70-million deficit “without major service cuts or layoffs.”

The Time article highlights that Hickenlooper took a 25-percent pay cut himself. However, it is a pittance considering how much money he is worth. Hickenlooper also forced city workers into accepting pay cuts.

Part of his idea of balancing the budget was to see that substitute teachers receive a 30-percent pay cut and $11.6 million is cut from city spending—all while the Denver public school system has no substitutes, has a ratio of 35 students per teacher and is closing several schools throughout the city.

When city residents and activists demanded justice in the wake of rampant police brutality and the murders of five disabled people—two Black males, one Black female and one Latino male—the mayor responded by creating a benign city monitor position at city residents’ expense. This position will pay anywhere from $74,000 to $114,000. The monitor can only make recommendations but will have no real power to go after killer cops.

Now the city is forcing a “Justice Center” down the throats of residents, costing a whopping $600 million—and this is only for the repayment of the bonds needed to construct the jail facility. The mayor and other city administrators have crisscrossed the city, paying special attention to communities of color, to sell the new proposal.

Of course, nothing is being said about the fact that Black males are seven times as likely to be arrested in Denver as whites, and Latino males twice as likely, and that 60 percent of those in jail have not been tried but are awaiting trial, many because they cannot afford to post bail. Some 42 percent of the new felony cases are for drug possession, yet the city is allocating only $1.3 million for drug treatment and few decent-paying jobs are opening up.

City administrators have gone as far as to call the jail proposal an issue of human rights, because the conditions in the current jail are so deplorable. To be sure the conditions are bad, but to call the building of a jail a matter of human rights is sick and twisted. The true human rights abuse is a society that puts profit before human need. Many of those in jail and prison are there because of crimes of opportunity and these crimes won’t go away until the for-profit system is abolished.

This proposal for a jail is really part of the war being waged against workers, poor people and communities of color. The proposal for a new jail in Denver is part of a trend in this country. Here in Denver, the call to retake May Day is being heeded and used as part of the struggle against the jail proposal, behind the slogan, “Money for jobs, health care and education, not for war and incarceration.”