Prisons and jails bring out the worst in us. We; by need for food, security, family, and manhood, are forced into animal-like behaviors due to animal-like treatment.
Imagine Being fed overcooked oatmeal, beans, and soy as main courses 3 times a day and not having the strength to be proactive or maintain mental and social acuity throughout the day.
Imagine having to pay four times the base cost for canteen items, without an income – reduced to begging and engaging in predatory like behaviors for basic needs.
Imagine having a brain injury and being denied medical care, left to suffer with dizzy spells, headaches, high blood pressure, and memory lapses.
Imagine suffering from a mental disorder and the only form of treatment is sedatives, isolation and safety cells.
Imagine being a childhood sex abuse survivor and being forced to live amongst sexual predators; forced into a state of heightened fear, pain and anger.
Imagine living in filth and not being provided with adequate cleaning supplies; forced to smell, breathe, and touch grime.
Imagine being stuck in a cell for 23 hours a day and having to listen to blaring televisions; causing pain to ears, brain, and leaving you in frustration.
Imagine your only recourse being a grievance system that systematically and wrongfully denies your complaints.
This is an average day in jail here at Santa Rita. Being reduced to animal-like treatment is what is jeopardizing public safety, not promoting it. Our issues become exacerbated and once again, the expensive system fails at its job, causing more harm and pain than it does good.
Reimagine a justice system with a well-regulated mental health system that provides regular therapy groups and counseling.
Reimagine a justice system that feeds its citizens adequate food, allowing for the person to be strong and healthy so they may work on themselves, and not reinforce bad behaviors.
Reimagine a justice system with medical care that actually performs their duties up to standards, producing healthy people and outcomes.
Being reduced to animal-like treatment is what is jeopardizing public safety, not promoting it. Our issues become exacerbated and once again, the expensive system fails at its job, causing more harm and pain than it does good.
I call on our community to demand change. I call for my fellow humans to take reformative action to reimagine healthy our justice system in a humane and healing spirit.
By reappropriating funds from law enforcement and investing in mental and physical health, we make drastic changes to the policing culture which has led to countless lawsuits, death, and destruction.
Investing in people, not systems because it’s the individual that needs help, not the perpetuation of incarceration cycles.
I call on additional oversight measures and regulations of the camera systems so we may begin to see real change.
Invest in people, not systems.