A group of multi-faith clergy temporarily halted construction of King County’s embattled youth jail and courts by locking themselves to steel beams Friday.
A group of others protested on the sidewalk outside the construction site at the Children and Family Justice Center at East Alder Street and 12th Avenue East in Seattle with signs and candles.
This marked the end of the fourth week of the “People’s Moratorium,” a community effort urging the county to stop construction. The group says they've been fighting for six years asking the county to re-purpose the construction from incarceration to meeting basic needs like housing.
Growing group of people opposed to the jail are outside the construction entrance with signs, and singing songs. pic.twitter.com/O0I9u150oi
The protests are partly in response to when organizers say King County Executive Dow Constantine ignored a letter from the No New Youth Jail Coalition which asked for the county to pause construction.
"We're praying for Dow to embrace his humanity and end a project that will bring harm and trauma to our communities,” said Dean Spade, member of the No New Youth Jail Coalition, in a statement. "It's time for human need to guide the spending of county resources, shifting away from caging children and towards helping them thrive."
There is a $210 million levy for the jail's replacement outlined on King County's website, but Spade believes the total cost is closer to $233 million. A spokesperson for the project said the total amount approved by the county council is $219 million and $45 million of that amount will go to constructing the new facility. The rest will be for other improvements to the new courthouse and parking.
The jail is scheduled to open in 2020.
The majority of kids locked are there for minor crimes, Reverend Beth Chronister with the University Unitarian Church said in a statement. She added that youth are most affected by a systematic injustice in the city.
“The bottom line is that caging kids is expensive now and will only escalate future costs for all of us,” Anne Jenny, commissioned minister at the Northshore United Church of Christ said in a statement. “Sadly, the greatest burden of those costs will be borne by communities of color."
In a statement sent to KING, a King County spokesperson defended outreach to the community:
"King County engaged in extensive community outreach about the need for a new facility before the levy lid lift was passed by voters in 2012. Then, as planning for the CFJC got underway, we hosted a number of in-person public events and online forums for community members to offer input on the design of the facility and the programming that would be housed there. We have continued those conversations with interested parties even as construction is underway on the CFJC. In fact, just last Friday, a group of project opponents met in person with Executive Constantine and members of his staff, so to say that the executive has avoided engaging with the community about this project is false."
