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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
FROM: Care Not Cages Coalition CONTACTS: Attica Scott, Director of Special Projects, Forward Justice Action Network [email protected] | (502) 625-5299 Becky Keyes, Louisville Showing Up for Racial Justice [email protected] (502) 270-7502 RE: Invest in People’s Needs, NOT a New Jail The study by CGL Company funded by Louisville Metro Council and commissioned by the Louisville Metro Criminal Justice Commission has failed to address the root causes of incarceration and instead, wants our community to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on a new jail — something that goes counter to everything our community really needs. The study has four recommendations, which include strengthening citation-in-lieu of arrest practices, supporting the crisis call diversion program, and reviewing and reforming the bail and pretrial risk assessment, all of which we fully support. However, buried at the end of the report is a call to build a $400-530 million new jail! This recommendation fails to address the root causes of crime and must be rejected. “CGL is the biggest jail designer in the world,” said former State Representative Attica Scott, whose organization, Forward Justice Action Network, is part of the Care Not Cages Coalition. “How can we trust that a corporation that plans and designs jails is a neutral party here? This study should NEVER have been done by a company with so much to gain from a decision to build a new jail.” “Unless we address the root causes of incarceration, we will not create safety for anyone in our community,” said Celine Mutuyemariya of Black Leadership Action Coalition of Kentucky. “A new jail is not the answer to address widespread community problems that disproportionately impact those most vulnerable.” “When we met with CGL in 2024, we expressed that the study needed to look at alternatives to incarceration,” said Noelle Tennis Gulden, a member of Louisville Showing Up for Racial Justice. “But where is the focus on affordable housing? Or community based mental health? While there are recommendations for reforms, a new jail, with its massive price tag, will overwhelm other efforts and continue the failed policies of caging our way out of poverty.” Members of the Care Not Cages Coalition have long supported deflection/diversion investments, bail/pretrial risk assessment reform. We commend CGL for including these recommendations. And they must go further. A safer community for everyone is about safe, affordable housing to address the homeless crisis and community-based mental health services and neighborhood centers for our youth. “The problem in the current jail, where 21 people have died since 2021, is not about needing a new jail,” said coalition member Councilwoman Shameka Parrish Wright of VOCAL-KY. “The issues are that we are holding too many people in jail on bails they cannot afford, and the health care provider hired by the City has failed to do its job there, despite our efforts to make them accountable.” “Louisville cannot continue to incarcerate people who desperately need help and support the jail cannot provide. That has not and will not improve the safety of our city,” said Kungu Njuguna of the ACLU of Kentucky. “Investments in community support like deflection programs, crisis stabilization facilities, and mental health facilities and services are the way forward.” In April of this year, members of the Care Not Cages coalition met with the Criminal Justice Commission to discuss alternatives to incarceration. They provided Commission members with an extensive resource guide (Care Not Cages - Alternatives to Incarceration 2025-04-16.pdf) in the hopes that these can be thoroughly studied and pursued so our community can make an informed decision on the way forward. ###
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 Photo ActiveStills Archives: Gaza under attack, Khan Yunis, south Gaza Strip. Photographer: Mohammed Zaanoun 19 Nov 2023 On Friday, December 1, when Israel resumed its bombing campaign in Gaza, Deanna Rushing began a hunger strike in protest and as part of the worldwide call for a permanent cease fire, negotiations, and humanitarian aid. “When I learned the bombing had begun again, I had to take more drastic action,” states Rushing. “I made the decision to begin a hunger strike. I am in day 4 of not eating. It is imperative to demand an end to the horrific genocide being perpetrated with the financial and leadership directives my government makes in the name of my country, in my name. My state, Kentucky, contributes $9 million dollars per year, largely in military weapons, in support of the occupation that has led to the suffering.” “We’ve been protesting for weeks and along with the majority of our country’s people and the people of the world we have been calling for an end to this genocide, but it has not stopped,” said Rushing “It must stop.” Rushing is urging more members of the Louisville community to speak up and make a deeper commitment to ending the US-backed Israeli attack that has cost the lives of over 16,000 Palestinians, two-thirds of them women and children. This includes over 800 deaths since the bombing resumed. She is asking people to contact their US representative for the first time, or again, if they have already called. She is asking people from Louisville to write to Joe Biden asking him to call for a permanent cease fire. Rushing is part of the Louisville-based Coalition for a Cease Fire, and a member of Louisville Showing up for Racial Justice (LSURJ). She has been part of the protests for a cease fire since the US-supported assault on Gaza began. To follow Deanna in this journey or to contact her, see her blog here.
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Communications Volunteers: There are lanes for everyone to join in this work, and we need your help online! You can see from this blog page that we are choosing not to regularly update our site. Most of our updates are shared in our monthly email newsletter to our base, but we would love to keep this blog updated with key information for folks looking for an entry point into LSURJ's work. If you can regularly volunteer your time (with other LSURJ members) to spread the word about our organizing efforts and to mobilize the base, please consider joining the LSURJ Comms team. There are various ways to participate depending on your time and interests. Some of our top needs right now: posting on LSURJ's Twitter / Instagram / Facebook and updating our blog section of our site. Ready to dive in? Have more questions? Contact us at [email protected]. Showing Up for Racial Justice (SURJ) and the local LSURJ chapter are proud to endorse the candidates below for the November 8, 2022, election.  Coming to these endorsement decisions has been years in the making. For us, Ending Cash Bail is the “low hanging fruit” when it comes to changing the criminal justice system in a meaningful way for everyone- especially poor and working class folks. In our field work, we’ve determined that 76% of voters are with us on the issue regardless of their political party or race. Cash bail is a classist system that needs to go- and every day in arraignment court, judges are asked to use their discretion about when, if, and how high to set bail. By putting pressure on sitting judges and backing progressive candidates, we aim curb and ultimately eliminate this classist practice one courtroom at a time. In doing so, we have an opportunity significantly lessen the population of our overcrowded and deadly city jail.
Learn more: you can learn more about how SURJ and LSURJ came to these endorsements here. Take action: Do you want to help spread the word about these endorsements before the Nov. 8th election? Visit this page and scroll down to the "Join Us" section! You do not need us to tell you that systemic racism is entrenched in all our institutions including the Kentucky State Legislature. But those of us who are white anti-racists in particular, have a responsibility not to play into or reenforce that systemic racism. In a move that shines a spotlight on racism in politics, Senator Robert Stivers (a legislator who stands for an agenda that is anti Black, anti poor, anti immigrant) bill on no knocks warrants, a weaker law that is supported overwhelmingly by white Republicans, (some white Democrats and a couple of largely white progressive organizations) passed in the Senate and is on its way to the House. But wait! What about the legislation that Representative Attica Scott introduced, HB21? Why has that not even gotten a reading? Wait! In fact no legislation introduced by Kentucky’s only Black women legislator has gotten a reading . . . HB21 was pre-filed in AUGUST with 16 (D) co-sponsors (16% of House) introduced on January 5th, the first day of the session and has languished without even being assigned to a committee until late February. Whereas SB2 with nine co-sponsors (23% of Senate) was introduced on February 22nd and got all the way to a vote in ONE WEEK. One was introduced by a Republican white man, the other by a Democratic Black woman. While some will argue, “well, at least we got something”, this short sighted thinking is a slap in the face of communities most impacted by the murder of Breonna Taylor by Louisville police. It undermines the leadership of Black women in particular, bypassing Breonna’s Law, which was introduced by Representative Attica Scott. AND... in a really important development, HB21, Representative Scott’s bill, just got assigned to a committee—which is needed to get it heard. And the Kentucky Council of Churches, Hood to the Holler and other statewide organizations are going strong for HB21. To play into erasing all the work that so many have done to move legislation that could actually have an impact forward——this undermines us all. If we are to build a progressive Kentucky, we MUST look at HOW we win what we need, as well as WHAT we win. Short sighted political maneuvers are not the road to racial, economic and gender justice that we need. Here is a view from one of our LSURJ leaders, and faith community friends, Phil Lloyd- Sidle: "Kentuckians would benefit from Breonna's Law, so why isn't legislature acting?"  Ways to take action for Breonna’s Law tJoin Hood to the Holler for a Conversation and Action with Representative Attica Scott WHO: Moderated by Hood to the Holler with featured guest Rep. Attica Scott WHAT: Twitter Chat discussing Breonna's Law WHERE: Twitter! Follow Hood to the Holler to see all posted questions, and during the chat follow #JusticeforBreonna to see all of the tweets from participants. Rep. Scott will be participating and interacting with folks. WHEN: 5:00pm ET on Monday, March 1 SIGN UP LINK (you don't have to sign up to participate, but if you sign up you will receive info about how to participate in a Twitter chat and you will receive a reminder on the day of to join so you don't forget). Commemorate the Anniversary of Breonna Taylor's Death Facebook Event Join the Caravan to Frankfort on March 2nd  |
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