Monthly Archives: June 2020

Defund the Police: Sheriff

For Broome County, its been quite simple: year after year, by Republicans and Democrats alike, funding for the county sheriff has been aggressively expanded particularly for the massive jail complex.  Year after year the number of guards and the sheriff’s and jail budget has grown.

In 2014 county legislators voted for a $7million expansion of the jail despite protests.  They built a jail and staffed it with officers to incarcerate 600 persons daily. 

Yet despite the best efforts of city and county police, district attorneys, and local judges to arrest and incarcerate as many local residents and especially as many Black men as possible, the official crime rate has been falling.  Propelled in part by growing pressure by community organizations, the number of incarcerated persons is falling. In recent months the jail has held fewer than 300 persons. It’s half empty.

And now big budget cuts are coming to the state and county. 

Here is one place to start: defund the jail.  It is a threat to public safety.

Last month only 34 persons of the 277 housed in the jail were convicted of any crime.  And for this we pay $30 million a year? 

The vast majority inside are arrested for misdemeanors.  And by all accounts a majority have been criminalized for substance use and mental health diseases.  Many more have disabilities.  Instead of treatment they get locked down and punished, and come home to us in much worse health.  And now the jail is a local hotspot to incubate the coronavirus among not just the incarcerated, but also the hundreds of guards, medical, and food staff, who daily move into and out of the sheriff’s complex and then into the community.

It is really quite simple:  defund the jail and use the funds for community-based and controlled health and education services that have been so severely cut by successive county administrations.

From Justtalk.blog by Bill Martin, June 6 2020