In the age of misinformation and the new presidential regime, we also call them out on their untruths. Part of the presidential campaign was the spread of algorithmic misinformation during the election race. It appeared as if the entire country became rampant with crime like something out of Gotham City. Ultimately, the message we were getting was that California has gone soft on crime. Prop 36 passed, California voted to retain slavery in prisons and San José Mayor Matt Mahan is now declaring war on the houseless.
The COVID-19 lockdowns were no doubt devastating. How were people supposed to pay their rent? Many small businesses were forced to permanently close. COVID deaths and the spread of fentanyl were skyrocketing! San José was turning into tent city. Mass uprisings shook up the nation after the murder of George Floyd, and everyone was at home on their phones looking for answers. But was the crime rate as bad as they say it was? Not according to the new Santa Clara County Daily Jail Population Dashboard.
According to the new Santa Clara County Daily Jail Population Dashboard, the rampant crime rate was all hype. The average daily jail population in 2023 peaked at 2,960 but the following year’s average daily jail population decreased to 2,890. Currently, the average daily jail population sits at 2,663. Although there was a brief spike in 2023, the Santa Clara County Jail population in no way compares to the 1990’s, which peaked at 5,072 in 1997. That’s a little hard to believe because according to the Santa Clara County Daily Jail Population Dashboard, today’s jail capacity is 3,670. It’s not rocket science to see the correlation between the prison population rate, violence, and the hard-on-crime era. Due to the passing of the Public Safety Realignment Act (AB 109) in 2011, and the Public Safety and Rehabilitation Act (Prop 57) in 2016, both the crime and prison population rate dropped significantly. Criminal justice reform and programs work!
It’s a no-brainer as to how the economic disparities of 2020 impacted the jail population later in 2023, but what County stakeholders need to invest in is figuring out what successfully decreased the jail population by 10%? What is working, and how we can enhance the depopulation of the jail? How do criminal justice reforms and programs create safe streets? More importantly, there is no need for a new jail!
According to the Santa Clara County Daily Jail Population Dashboard, 90.7% of the population is pretrial - meaning they are awaiting trial. That’s 90% of the jail population whose only reason for being incarcerated is a bail issue. The largest ethnicity in our jail is Raza at 58.5% while only making 24.7% of the county. Blacks make up 13.5% of our jail population while only making 2.9% of the county. These racial disparities cannot be ignored as the largest economic contributors to the country yet are also the largest population who find it harder and harder each month to pay their rent and find themselves serving time, and most likely are pretrial in our county.
Despite mass misinformation, the new presidential regime, and a potential new era of hard-on crime, the reactionaries to our movement cannot shake us or break us. They can’t run from our truths, or instill fear in a people that are not afraid anymore. The jail population is decreasing, our people are coming home and we will continue to resist a new jail and our opposition’s desperate efforts to manipulate the people in their deceitful favor.
