The City has a new Detention Facilities Oversight Board, and an aldermanic panel has approved the nine initial appointees. They will deal with complaints at the City Justice Center (CJC).
Complaints like these:
Complaints that have led to a recently-filed class-action lawsuit alleging “violent and systemic abuse” at the CJC.
The unfortunate reality is that this oversight board is really just an example of a common political ruse. When politicians, like City mayor Tishaura Jones, must deal with a genuine problem, instead of directly addressing it, they make it appear they are addressing it. They form a committee of well-meaning people, these people take a lot of time looking into the problem and discussing it, then they make suggestions that of course need to be carefully considered, etc. This all takes a lot of time. A lot of time when nothing really changes. But, it demonstrates to the politician’s constituents that they are taking the problem “seriously.” It permits these politicians to deflect criticism about how nothing significant is really being done to deal with the problem.
The sad truth is that the formation of the oversight board is essentially an admission that the problems at the CJC are not being directly addressed.
There are numerous examples of well-run and humane pretrial detention facilities in our country. The models of how to do it right already exist. You don’t need to reinvent the wheel. If you do what the other successful pretrial detention centers are doing, you too will have a successful pretrial detention center. It doesn’t take an oversight committee to look at what they are doing, see which of those things the CJC is not doing, and then begin doing those things. And, if you’re doing things those successful pretrial detention centers aren’t doing, stop doing those things. It’s not that complicated; it’s not rocket science.
If the mayor was genuinely determined to make the CJC better, she could hire a superintendent that was knowledgeable and experienced in running one of these model pretrial detention centers and have them come in and make the changes needed. She could hire consultants that have a proven track-record of turning around other problem detention centers. She could take direct action to solve the problem.
Or, she could do nothing but sound good doing it.