ALAMEDA COUNTY, CALIFORNIA: Campaign to Derail the Super Jail
Member of Campaign is interviewed by local media
March 2001
- Officials in Alameda County, California announce plans to build a massive, “state of the art” juvenile hall for detained youth, in Dublin, California. Although youth crime was on the decline, public officials used the haunting specter of a future wave of super-predators to justify the mass incarceration of young people of color in Alameda County, particularly African-American boys from Oakland.
- The Youth Force Coalition and Books Not Bars, two youth based community organizations, come together to stop the massive jail expansion. Joining hundreds of community organizers and residents of Alameda County, they launch the Campaign to Derail the Super Jail – whose goals are to 1) stop the expansion of the juvenile hall 2) stop the relocation of the facility and 3) convince decision makers to reallocate savings to alternatives to detention.
Spring 2001
- Thirty young people drive to Sacramento, California to speak at a California State Board of Corrections meeting, and rally outside chanting “We’ll Be Back!” when they aren’t allowed to speak.
- The campaign mobilizes over a hundred youth and supporters to the Alameda County Board of Supervisors, to present their case for a smaller facility, and ultimately moves the votes of two County Supervisors to their side.
- When the next Board of Corrections meeting is moved to the last minute to San Diego, far from Alameda County, 75 people from the Bay, San Diego, and LA make it to the event and testify. The group brings in signs and charts, opens with the freedom song “Wade in the Water”, and punctuates their comments by laying bricks before BOC members to represent the foundation the Board was laying for the increasing incarceration of California youth.
Spring 2001 – Spring 2002
- When the campaign loses a vote on the size of the facility, nine young people conduct a sit-in and are arrested by county sheriffs. They spend the night in jail.
- That same weekend, over a thousand people attend “Not Down with the Lockdown”, a free rally and concert in front of Oakland’s City Hall. Campaign organizers and community residents condemn the county and the state for their policies that would lead to incarcerating more young people of color, using poetry and song, hip-hop art and dance.
Spring 2002 – Spring 2003
- Campaign members partner with community members in the Dublin area, where the facility is sited to be built, to organize against the siting process of the facility. Dublin residents and the city government make it clear that they would oppose the facility, including through lawsuits. Allies in environmental justice join the campaign.
- A collaboration of juvenile justice advocates and Campaign supporters release Alameda County at the Crossroads of Juvenile Justice Reform: A National Disgrace or a National Model? The report presents options regarding size and alternatives to detention that could reduce the size of the proposed facility.
May 2003
- On May 6th, the County Board of Supervisors puts forward a plan to abandon the Juvenile Justice Complex and rebuild the juvenile hall adjacent to its current location in San Leandro, near Oakland, with a total of 360 beds. The size of the expansion is cut from 240 to 30, a decrease of 80%.
Members of Campaign to Derail the Super Jail at the County Board of Supervisors