An Appeal To The Middle River Regional Jail Authority Board February 2, 2021

This excellent presentation was made at the meeting of the MRRJ Board (representing five jurisdictions--Augusta and Rockingham Counties  and the cities of Harrisonburg, Waynesboro and Staunton) regarding a possible $40,000,000 jail renovation and expansion. Posted here by permission.

I'm Ruth Stoltzfus Jost, with Valley Justice Coalition in Harrisonburg.

Thank you for the work you do to meet the needs of incarcerated persons in your care. You've spent many hours over many months.

However, you are public officials requesting to spend public money from five jurisdictions, none of which has yet given the taxpaying public a broad opportunity to be heard on whether or how to spend their money to expand the jail.

Some of the projected costs represent capital expenditures and updates to serve needs for persons presently incarcerated.

But most of the cost is to expand the capacity of the jail, to service those costs over time, and to operate a facility with many more beds. This will lock us into another cycle of increasing incarceration.

Your five communities are well aware that these recommendations come from an architectural firm, which has an obvious interest in expansion of the jail.  This doesn't feel right to a lot of people.

Every one of these jurisdictions Is part of a community criminal justice board which is required by law to adopt a plan for reducing incarceration. That plan is to be updated every two years.  I cannot speak for other jurisdictions, but Harrisonburg-Rockingham has not adopted a plan showing how it will reduce the rate of incarceration.  And it has surely not updated any such plan in the last two years.

It is as if we have a constantly flooding basement and have just commissioned an expert on how to better patch and fortify against our constant influx of water. But we have failed to look outside at what may be causing this unusual flood. 

And it is unusual.  We are incarcerating people at twice the national rate even though Virginia is a low crime state and we are a low crime area of Virginia.  And we aren't "badder" than other people.

Citizens and taxpayers question this uncontrolled spiral of ever more incarceration and ever more jail construction. We support our new efforts to improve local law enforcement, drug and mental health treatment, and recent innovative programs to actually divert people from the criminal justice system entirely.  These efforts, scaled up, improved, and joined with new initiatives, show promise and need a few years to reduce our jail numbers.

So now that you have seen the experts' recommendation on the costs of expansion I urge you before you make a request of these communities to take the next step: 

Before acting, take ten months to let these five communities get expert analysis of another kind:  in depth evaluation of which practices and policies in each community are causing our over-incarceration and how to change them.  AND an in-depth community listening process for citizens and taxpayers to be heard on what they want and how to build on positive, community-based alternatives to the endless cycle we are currently in. 

That way, the request you make of them will be one that can be respected -- informed by a process of solid expert information and on genuinely hearing the priorities of the public you serve.

Thank you.

Here's a link to a petition to sign https://www.change.org/p/oppose-the-expansion-at-middle-river-regional-jail?recruiter=764858728&recruited_by_id=44954200-872d-11e7-b902-7f1a4337f57a&utm_source=share_petition&utm_medium=copylink&utm_campaign=petition_dashboard