At Tuesday's meeting, 10 area residents stood before the Pima County Board of Supervisors to thank county officials for not supporting their proposal to build a new jail.

Tierra Rainey, executive director of the Tucson Bail Fund, which has opposed construction of the new jail, said the county governor is “trying to slow this reactionary process and bring more community stakeholders into the conversation about the future of the jail.” He expressed his support for Jean Lescher. Pima County Jail.

The county has not yet made a final decision on what to do with the current jail. But county supervisors seemed more intent on finding ways to reduce the prison population than building new facilities.

At the audience session, not a single local resident was in favor of building a new prison, but a recent public survey found that a plurality of respondents (approximately 19%) were in favor of building a new prison. Shown. Approximately 65% ​​of respondents work in prisons, previously worked in prisons, or worked in law enforcement.

The supervisors' conversation comes as the Pima County Adult Detention Center Blue Ribbon Commission, which has been studying the need and feasibility of building a new jail for the past year, submitted its final report to county supervisors on Jan. 31. It was done later.

Potential next steps outlined by Lesher in a Feb. 13 article memo Calls made by various supervisors at the Feb. 20 meeting included further studies of prison infrastructure, a detailed assessment of the cost of providing health care in prisons, and ways to potentially reduce prison populations. It is. The board could also create a new committee to look more broadly into who goes to prison and why.

Supervisor Matt Heinz (District 2) suggested the county should set a goal of reducing the jail population to about half its current level. He said the goal is to have fewer than 1,000 people in prison by 2030.

“There are too many people in prison,” Heinz said. “There are too many black and brown people in particular.”

Heinz added that none of the current problems in prisons “can really be addressed unless we address the underlying problem of prison overcrowding.”

lack of data

Supervisor Rex Scott (1st District) has no idea how to properly manage the jail going forward without knowing how many people are being held there simply because they can't afford bail. said it is difficult to deal with.

Scott asked Rescher to ask Pima County Superior Court Chief Judge Jeffrey Bergin early this year for more data to understand how courts set bail and how much bail is. He said he had requested Mr. Mr. Scott lamented the fact that Mr. Bergin did not respond to his request.

Mr. Scott and Mr. Heinz had both sought ways to reduce the prison population, but both expressed frustration that higher courts had not yet provided information to understand who is in prison and why. Heinz suggested that given that the Board of Supervisors controls the court's budget, it could begin funding the court on a monthly basis.

“Dark and oppressive”

Board Chairwoman Adelita Grijalva (Ward 5) said she wants people working in, affected by, and incarcerated in prisons to be at the table during future county evaluations. He said he wanted him to arrive.

“It's important to have people who have been in the program serving that population and letting them know what's involved, what's working, and what's not working,” Grijalva said. .

While touring the prison, Grijalva said he saw “clear signs of deferred maintenance.” She also said that prisons are “very dark and oppressive spaces.” We cannot imagine the mental health conditions of those working in prisons and those detained in prisons. ”

Grijalva said she doesn't want to automatically increase funding for health care in prisons, which was one of the recommendations in Rescher's book. February 13th memo.

“We want to understand how we are using existing funds before making additional investments,” Grijalva said.

Grijalva said the prison houses people who may not have seen a doctor in years or who come with pre-existing health conditions. She emphasized the need to partner with outside service providers like El Rio Community Health Center.

Physical and mental health care in prisons has been widely criticized as slow and inadequate. The county itself fired NafCare, a for-profit health care provider, citing understaffing and failing to meet contractually mandated performance standards.

What was the purpose of the Blue Ribbon Committee?

Supervisor Steve Christie (District 4) questioned what's the point of the county's Blue Ribbon Commission if it can't provide a final recommendation.

“What was the purpose of the committee if they couldn't make recommendations?” Christie asked.

He was referring to two viable options laid out by the commission in its final report. These options include:
• Renovate major parts of the prison and build 1,132 new housing units at a cost of $623 million.
• Or build an entirely new 3,162-bed prison at a cost of $858 million.

Mr Christie said calling for further research was “the proverbial can of death”. He said the broader questions that other regulators are now asking should have been evaluated by the original committee.

“Reducing beds, reducing sentences, adding programs — who is responsible for running the prisons?” Christie asked. Then he answered himself, “The sheriff, not the board of supervisors.”

“Why are we trying to tell the sheriff how to run a jail?” Christie said.

After considering each supervisor's input, the board decided that Mr. Rescher would return at its next meeting on March 5 to provide further details on finalizing next steps. He said it would provide more “financial granularity” on how much a further evaluation of the jail's physical conditions and a broader study of the county's approach to criminal justice would cost.

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