We are building momentum to transform Santa Barbara County’s criminal justice system: to improve humane treatment, fairness and racial/ethnic justice and free hundreds of non-violent people from being arrested and locked up in our county jail. We do this by convincing our County Supervisors to change budget priorities for 2021-2022 and apply economic justice to build what Dr. King called the “Beloved Community.”
Our County Supervisors have the power to reallocate funds away from traditional policing and jail toward “building good neighbors” – – using budget tools to fund safe, more effective community alternatives that help people fairly and efficiently obtain justice and healing, rather than prolonged criminal justice entanglement. Unnecessary jailing causes people to lose jobs and can cause families to lose housing and other necessities.
| CLUE SB’s Criminal Justice Workgroup has collaborated with community organizations and researched the issues to support specific recommendations. The chart below highlights the budget problems: |
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| During 2019-2020, our County Supervisors allocated nearly 60% of the entire criminal justice budget to the Sheriff’s Department to fund traditional policing and jail. This was $26.7 million and 165 full time positions more than average Sheriffs’ budgets in comparable California counties. By contrast, our Public Defender’s budget, which exists to fulfill Constitutional mandates for our citizens and serves a critical role in advocating for fair outcomes and racial/ethnic justice, received about 5% of all funding and staff. Reallocating funds from the Sheriff to the Public Defender will help correct these stark imbalances, better secure public safety, jail fewer people and reduce recidivism. Our County Supervisors funded an extensive “Renew 22” study in which KPMG, an outside agency, conducted a county-wide operational performance review of our criminal justice system. KPMG has presented sensible, transformative structural reforms to support budget changes. CLUE SB’s Criminal Justice Workgroup supports three basic recommendations that fit with KPMG’s findings and recommendations: 1. Reduce Sheriff’s Budget to align with comparable Counties and reallocate the savings to support community-based alternatives to jail. CLUE supports reducing the Sheriff Department budget to align with Sheriffs’ budgets in comparable California counties. Redirect these funds to increase programs for jail alternatives and increase staff for the Public Defender’s holistic advocacy model, a successful approach that combines social work, housing advocacy, resource specialists, and attorneys that take into account the entire person and address underlying causes for involvement with the criminal justice system. Holistic advocacy generates workable solutions that results in fewer people jailed, fewer families disrupted, and more stable communities. 2. Reduce the Jail budget to reflect the 37% reduction in our jail population. In 2019, the County budgeted $66,964,000 for 819 beds. Each bed cost taxpayers $81,761.13 per year. In 2020, the spread of Covid-19 led to revised release criteria that reduced our jail population by 37%. Keeping these new policies in place would result in a long-term target of 550 beds that could save up to $24,776,680 each year! The savings could be reallocated to better fund community support resources, including mental health services, shown to reduce recidivism. Join CLUE in asking our Supervisors to permanently reduce our jail population which disproportionately includes people of color. 3. Reallocate the Sheriff’s jail budget to programs that emphasize mentoring and treatment that will “build good neighbors”. Most of those who are jailed eventually return to our community. Join CLUE in asking our Supervisors to redirect money to humane diversion and transitional support for jail residents to successfully re-enter our community as “good neighbors”. Ask our Sheriff to repurpose funds he receives to re-train officers to first emphasize community-based solutions, with arrests as a last resort. A system that focuses on successful diversion, re-entry and “building good neighbors” benefits all of us by improving public safety and decreasing costs. Please act now! Click here to support changes by signing and e-mailing the attached letter to our County Supervisors. Your voice, combined with many others, can bring transformative, structural changes, using budget economics to improve racial/ethnic justice. With your help, we’ll continue to stand in solidarity and speak out until we are heard and action taken. |
