Organizational sign on: Support the call to Shut Down the Deadly King County Jail

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To have your organization endorse the following statement, please fill out the form below! For more information, check out this two-page document:
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Michael Rowland, a 63-year old long-time resident of Seattle who was experiencing a mental health crisis, died when he was restrained by King County Jail staff minutes after he was booked. This killing of a Black man was only the most recent death in a jail that has become one of the deadliest facilities in the country. The conditions in Seattle's King County Jail are horrific and life-threatening for human beings, who are predominantly poor and unhoused and disproportionately Black. The hundreds of millions spent on arresting, prosecuting, and jailing King County residents could instead be spent on supporting people in crisis by meeting basic needs like housing and health care. Even the King County Executive has admitted that the jail is a disaster; in his July 2020 State of the County speech, Dow Constantine pledged to close the jail. The jail is “decrepit and expensive to operate,” he said, and the money we spend on it “could be better spent to promote opportunity and human potential.” We agree!

We demand an approach to community safety that actually makes all of us safer. Incarceration does not, and in light of the recent deaths, we must act with urgency.

It’s time for Dow Constantine to make good on his word:

OUR CENTRAL DEMAND IS TO SHUT DOWN THE KING COUNTY JAIL PERMANENTLY AS DOW PROMISED.

To start, the King County Jail population must be reduced by half by June 2023.

In response to Michael Rowland’s homicide and the record number of suicides in the jail, we call for County and city officials to take these three immediate steps towards emptying the jail:

1. STOP jailing all people experiencing mental health crises and release those currently jailed.

Target: King County Executive Dow Constantine

2. PROHIBIT police from seeking jail admission for those experiencing mental health crisis.

Target: City mayors and police chiefs and sheriffs

3. STOP IMPOSING BAIL which only functions to hold poor people in this deadly facility.

Target: Judges and Prosecutors

THESE DEMANDS MUST BE MET THROUGH DECARCERATION, NOT BY TRANSFERRING PEOPLE TO OTHER CAGES.

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