In January, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors will scheduled a vote on whether LA should spend $1.4 BILLION to build more jail cells. Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky said the plan would “consign the other vital services to second class status for two generations.”
Today you can sign the petition, pass it on to your friends, and call your supervisor to demand LA spend its resources on community-based programs and services, not costly jail expansion. Keep an eye out for updates about mobilizing to the Board of Supervisors meeting in January.
ENACT A CALIFORNIA PRISON AND JAIL MORATORIUM:
Stop the Cages, Stop the Cuts
On December 12th we are going to Sacramento to demand an immediate moratorium on all prison and jail expansion. To join us, email Emily Harris.
Next year’s trigger cuts will steal $608 million away from the programs that sustain our communities just weeks after 25 counties were invited to apply for over $600 million to build more jail cells in response to Gov. Brown’s Public Safety Realignment and the humanitarian crisis that is inside of California’s overcrowded prisons and jails. As the last 30 years of similar priorities have shown, poor communities and communities of color will be hit hardest by both the cuts and the cages.
A moratorium will force politicians at the county and state level to reduce sentences, decrease policing, invest in our communities and bring our people home.
Whether or not you can make it, please call your local legislators and ask them to stand strong for California communities by calling for a moratorium on all prison and jail construction, and encouraging counties to build alternatives to imprisonment, not more jail cells.
To get involved in the campaign, contact CURB at info@curbprisonspending.org.