Council doesn't understand the jail, part 1
Things aren't looking great, and we need to correct the record
On Tuesday October 15, the County Public Safety & Justice Affairs Committee met and roundly rejected the current plans for a County Jail in Garfield Heights. At the meeting, various councilmembers raised their discontent with the process and intent of the County Executive and the consultants tasked with driving the design process. Among the many, veritable criticisms of the current plans, some councilmembers raised objectionable—and outright false—opinions about the jail. Let’s talk about it.
From the outset, the current plans for the County Jail in Garfield Heights are dismal and reflect an outstanding lack of imagination by the consultants, County staff, and County Councilmembers alike.
Among the many flagrant atrocities of this site plan, a few are particularly egregious.
A Campus Only in Name
First, this site plan contemplates a single complex of different facilities that are serving fundamentally different—though related—purposes. This reflects a lack of imagination in penal design for full-service jails and presents a dangerous situation for both staff and detainees, akin to the current conditions at the Justice Center.
At the September 25 meeting of the County Citizen’s Advisory Council of Equity, the County Executive and County staff expressed their interest and admiration for the design and programming at the Grafton Correctional Institution, which houses minimum and medium security detainees in ODRC custody. Unlike the County’s current site plan, Grafton embodies a true campus design and offers detainees programming that orients them towards normalcy and effective re-entry.
(Grafton is still an atrocity, but it’s better than what most prisons are like.)
It is impossible to, in one breath, extol the benefits and novel design of Grafton while, in another, present this site plan as informed by Grafton in any way.
This is classic government doublethink where the County says the right words but fails to put those words into action, instead choosing to pervert the meaning of their words with actions that fly in the face of facts and logic. This site plan does that, and it’s embarrassing.
But let’s be clear—Grafton is far from an ideal institution, and it falls into the same issues and challenges that all of ODRC facilities and programming do. Ohio is a state of contradictions, and while there are many components of Ohio’s criminal justice ecosystem that are novel and progressive, they are based fundamentally upon the system of chattel slavery that the United States was built upon from the start.
No one expects that Cuyahoga County and its historically competitive levels of corruption would approach true reform. But the idea that a single warehouse is the same as a complex of different facilities is absurd.
The County’s actions demonstrate what their words don’t—that they only want to transplant the Justice Center to Garfield Heights.
Justice Center 2.0
Second, the site plan for the Garfield Heights “campus,” in an attempt to virtue-signal good things while failing to follow up with action, seeks to implement a few truly obscene concepts that spit in the face of humane living conditions for detainees.
At the northwest of the facility, indicated by point 6, is what the County is calling a “grass under foot” opportunity. Now, that might sound insidious—and it should, because the concept is just that.
Instead of following up on gratuitous promises for access to nature from each of the housing units, the County has decided that a simple “grass under foot” opportunity suffices. Instead of being exposed to nature throughout their stay, detainees will be escorted to the “grass under foot” opportunity for “grass under foot” time.
As if that weren’t enough, the County has also decided that each housing unit should have an opportunity for detainees to engage in recreation and to have access to clean air and natural light. In concept, these “opportunities” are basic living conditions, but the County’s implementation of these is far worse than the notion that these are “opportunities” to begin with.
This perversion of humane penal design that only seeks to undermine the basic humanity of detainees is being touted by the County as desirable, alongside other design plans that seek to achieve one of their overriding goals, which is “everything coming to the housing unit” in the name of service provision.
This is yet another example of County doublespeak. What they’re saying is that they wish to enhance detainees’ access to resources and ensure operational efficiency in service provision within the facility. What they’re doing is reinventing solitary confinement as a group activity, where mobility and exposure to different environments within the penal facility are restricted in the name of safety. This is quite literally a transplant of animal husbandry into the realm of humans.
There is nothing virtuous about containment. There is nothing virtuous about isolation. And there is nothing virtuous about dehumanization, especially of vulnerable populations, such as people with justice involvement.
Disorder in the County
Third, the response by County Council to the current site plan signals a rift between Councilmembers and the administration, specifically the County Executive and his posse. From the October 15 meeting, Councilmembers Gallagher (R) and Simon (D) made their disillusionment with the current site plan known and cited many aspects of the plan as being challenging for them, of which two observations are shocking.
First, Councilmembers took issue with the current plan’s use of more space while also expanding the height of the facility, compared to previous understandings.
In the words of Councilman Gallagher (R-5), “… we were ready to go almost two years ago, on two levels, on a pedestal, on 40 acres.”
Again from Councilwoman Simon (D-11), “… it’s difficult for me to sit here and believe what I hear from you [Nichole English, Public Works] because for years the sweet spot was two [floors], and all of a sudden now you’ve learned more. Why after years and years of presenting to us and doing research and having a more expansive team … came to the conclusion that it was important because of safety … and now we sit here, and all of a sudden nine months later, the sweet spot’s four [floors].”
While Council’s concern for the height and size requirements of the facility are admirable and show a certain care for penal design, it is unclear whether their concern comes from a genuine place or whether they’re mad about a perceived slight. From their rhetoric, it appears that the latter is more the case than the former.
Low-rise facilities coupled with a true campus design, incorporating multiple buildings stretching across the property, are the best way to design the facility—empirically and anecdotally. And while the County repeatedly claims to maintain dialogue with all stakeholders, including those working in the Jail, it’s unclear that that dialogue extends to every stakeholder, namely the union leaders who truly represent the needs and labor interests of those working in the County Jail.
Dialogue is good. Participatory decision-making is good. But dialogue and participation without everyone with a stake in the issue is performative.
We need action—not performance.
Regressive Policy 101
Second, Councilmembers presented issues with what was being considered for inclusion at the new facility, demonstrating a misunderstanding of the County Jail.
On a difficult point in contention from Councilman Gallagher, “what you [Nichole English, Public Works] presented is disappointing …. I don’t know where we go from here. I think Council President is going to have to meet with the Executive and figure out a go-forward plan …. Our goal should be to build the jail and the administration for the sheriff and the things that they need to do their job. And all the ancillary things, the bells and whistles, the cupcakes and popcorn, that can come later.”
With some more commentary, Councilman Gallagher responded to a point made by Nicole English, Public Works, about how “We feel like that site plan that we’ve showed you is all the same stuff that was in the DLR program.” He said, “The shooting range?” English responded, “There’s no shooting range on this site,” to which the Councilman responded, “Not on this site but on previous sites, that’s what we wanted.”
What counts as “bells and whistles, cupcakes and popcorn” seems arbitrary, in the worst of cases, and ambiguous, in the best. Regardless, there is an apparent non-agreement among Councilmembers as to what must be at the new facility and what is simply add-ons. This point was made by Councilwoman Simon at an earlier point when she questioned the inclusion of urban farming space for external use.
It is unclear that Council has an adequate understanding of the literature on what contributes positively towards effective detention and re-entry programming. It is also unclear that the interests of many Councilmembers aligns with those of community organizations and justice-impacted persons who advocate for positive change at the expense of penal norms, rather than penal norms at the expense of positive change.
A Lack of Knowledge
On a related point, Councilwoman Simon also had some inaccurate opinions about the role of the County Jail, what population it serves, and the function it provides the county. Most notably, she is under the impression that the average length of stay at a pre-trial facility is 30-60 days. This belies her underlying assumption that the County Jail is solely a pre-trial facility and that that piece of information is material to penal design. This was the same time she took issue with the urban farming plans.
Based on information obtained by public records request from Cuyahoga County, we’ve transcribed and analyzed a jail register taken on an arbitrary day in 2023. Because of a concerted lack of information about County operations, it’s unclear how representative this register is. Nevertheless, our findings undermine many traditional opinions about the County Jail, its operations, and—most importantly—who is there.
We found that the population was 1,786 detainees with a total of 4,220 charges. On average, detainees were in the jail for 122 days, with a minimum of 1, median of 64, and maximum of 1,850. We also found that the average age of detainees was 36, with a minimum of 18, median of 33, and maximum of 81.
Of the population, 73.40% were Black, 21% White, with a mix of races for the remainder. 87.91% were male, and 12.15% female. The most common responsible agency was the Court of Common Please (53.3%), with 33.48% coming from Cleveland. Nevertheless, 62.37% of detainees were the responsibility of the County, not including its specialty dockets. Only 52.58% of detainees were held on violent charges, and 24.41% were held on technical charges. Among them, 8.01% were being held on violations of parole or probation, which signals an improper use of resources.
In terms of charges, the most common were Contempt of Court (12.49%), Probation Violation (11.33%), and Felonious Assault (7.16%). Another 4.81% of charges were for Parole Violations, and another 4.03% were for Theft. Detainees mostly had numerous charges, and sometimes, they had many repeat charges. Therefore, these figures are representative of totals, rather than the population as a whole, given the many different reasons for why people are held at a County facility.
Nothing about these figures is reflected in the rhetoric of Councilwoman Simon nor Councilman Gallagher, and it is unclear whether the remainder of Council and County government are aware of the true nature of their County Jail.
In the coming installments of “Council doesn’t understand the jail,” we’ll take a look at the most recent developments by Council and introduce the underlying agreements between Cuyahoga County and the City of Cleveland governing use of the jail. Finally, we’ll introduce our most recent updates to the CJRF and how we’re moving forward with a common-sense plan for penal reform at the County level in this county.
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