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To: Mayor Ed Lee and the San Francisco Board of Supervisors

#NONEWSFJAIL – Reject the $240,000,000 plan to build a new jail in San Francisco

We absolutely won! The Board of Supervisors rejected it. The City filed a secret extension. The Sheriffs rejected it. We are NOT having a jail built in San Francisco!

Dear Mayor Lee and Honorable Members of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors:

Please reject plans to build a new jail that San Francisco does not need. This plan was developed nearly a decade ago and does not reflect current needs or our existing inmate population. While some inmates should be moved to a different facility, the jail is at 50 percent capacity, and accordingly there are a multitude of alternatives other than constructing a new jail at a cost of at least $240,000,000 in limited taxpayer resources.

Please join the chorus of public safety and mental health experts, as well as community advocates who all say #NoNewSFJail. Building a new jail would be a step backward, and would fly in the face of the many alternatives to incarceration that San Francisco's public safety experts have developed. Join your partners in the criminal justice system, your allies in the community, and reject a jail that would be built on tired notions of the past. It's time to take San Francisco forward, not back.

Why is this important?

Black people are 4% of city's population but are more than half of those currently locked up in San Francisco's jails. In March of this year, text messages exchanged between San Francisco Police Officers brought to light the horrific and racist police practices of the department. This week, the murder of Mario Woods at the hands of a San Francisco Police firing squad brought national attention to the war that is happening against Black youth and Black communities in the city. Now is the time that we stand up and say enough is enough. Now is the time, more than ever, that we take action to stop the plan to build a new jail in San Francisco.

The success of this new jail will depend on the criminalization and incarceration of the remaining Black and low-income people in the city. With the current jail half empty due to low crime rates, Mayor Ed Lee and the Board of Supervisors are poised to support a plan to construct a new facility that will cost $240,000,000. Each bed in the jail will cost $1 Million- a price borne on the back of Black and low-income residents who continue to be displaced due to the absence of affordable housing. This price tag also eliminates resources for other much-needed services such as mental health care and youth diversion programs. We need mental health and drug treatment beds, not jail beds. We must build communities, and not cages.

We must also take a stand for our young people and the generations to come. This is a proposal that was developed a decade ago. Major investments in infrastructure must reflect the current needs of the people of San Francisco, not the outdated interests of politicians. As our in-custody population continues to dwindle due to historically low crime rates, and as our needs for mental health treatment services continue to soar, this plan is incredibly wasteful and out of touch. The jail is bad for our community and ill-informed policy.

We need your voice. Join us to ask City Hall to reject this plan, and to say #NoNewSFJail.

San Francisco, CA, United States

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Updates

2016-06-09 10:51:51 -0700

Petition is successful with 3,057 signatures

2016-04-14 09:54:09 -0700

Petition is successful with 3,058 signatures

2015-12-15 09:43:32 -0800

Thank you all for supporting this fight against a new jail in San Francisco. TODAY, the Board of Supervisors meet to vote on it. Our signatures, along with a letter from over 30 nonprofit organizations to Mayor Lee are being delivered right now! Our voices will be heard! NO JAIL!

2015-12-07 13:45:58 -0800

1,000 signatures reached

2015-12-06 21:02:03 -0800

500 signatures reached

2015-12-03 05:37:16 -0800

100 signatures reached

2015-12-02 21:40:58 -0800

50 signatures reached

2015-12-02 19:51:29 -0800

25 signatures reached

2015-12-02 14:29:23 -0800

10 signatures reached