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Monday, September 17, 2007
A Jail We Don’t Need and A Tax We Don’t Want
Posted by The Dean of Cincinnati
Photo courtesy of here.
by No Jail Tax Pac
Hamilton County Sheriff Simon Leis and County Commissioners Todd Portune and David Pepper have called upon us to vote to add 800 news beds to the county jail to be financed by a regressive sales tax that we don’t want. The NAACP led a successful campaign this summer that also involved CPA, COAST, ACORN, the Libertarian Party and the Green Party. We succeeded in keeping Leis, Portune and Pepper from foisting this jail on us and now have the right to vote on the jail tax in the coming November election.
Most Hamilton County voters have already rejected an earlier version of this jail plan put forward by Leis, former Commissioner Phil Heimlich and supported by Todd Portune. They will reject this one too. Those few remaining supporters of the plan stick with it either out of confusion or misplaced loyalties.
CONFUSIONS
What are the confusions?
People confuse the County Jail with the State Prison. People say: Don’t we have to jail the criminals, murderers, rapists and robbers? No, we don’t jail them, we imprison them. People who are convicted of serious crimes don’t go to jail, they go to prison. Most people in jail are either awaiting trial or serving short terms of a few days or at most a few weeks for misdemeanors.
People confuse the number of people being jailed with the need for a new jail. If you use the jail as a motel for the poor, the mentally ill, and drug addicts then do you need a new jail. The problem is that we are jailing the homeless, the mentally ill, and people with substance abuse problems. Thanks to an idea that David Pepper first introduced when he was on the Cincinnati City Council, we jail people for possession of small amounts of marijuana, one of the most severe laws in the country. We also have people who could be released on bond while awaiting trial but have to spend the night because of the lack of a night court.
People confuse the window dressing of Pepper and Portune with real reform. After Heimlich’s jail was defeated last year, Pepper and Portune decided to refurbish it and present it to the public again, this time with some poorly defined or vague social services. Under the new plan substance abusers would get treatment in jail. Do we want to have to put people in jail to treat them? Most prisoners in jail are there for too short a time for substance abuse programs to help them. We don’t need treatment in jail; we need treatment in the communities to keep people out of jail.
People confuse one tax with another. Leis, Pepper and Portune want to finance this jail with a regressive sales tax. Sales taxes fall most heavily on working people and the poor. Portune voted to end taxes on financial transactions and stock options—taxes on the rich—and now wants to tax the poor to build the jail. We may need to raise taxes on property for schools, the elderly and mental health, but we do not need to raise taxes on the purchases of working people and the poor.
MISPLACED LOYALTIES
People are also supporting the Leis, Pepper, Portune plan out of misplaced loyalties. Many people have a lot of respect for Todd Portune because he has been willing at times in the past to act as a voice for community programs and issues. Others want to see “liberal” Democrats in power rather than conservative Republicans. While those may be good motives, we think the sentiment is misplaced. This is not a “liberal” or “progressive” jail plan.
Pepper and Portune are increasing the budget, the prestige and the power of Sheriff Simon Leis who no one thinks is a liberal.
Cincinnati citizens, especially its African American citizens, fought long and hard to win the Collaborative Agreement that sets out guidelines for local police. The Leis, Pepper, Portune proposal undermines the Collaborative Agreement since Sheriff’s patrols in Cincinnati are not subject to it.
Leis long-time record, Pepper’s support for the marijuana ordinance and Portune’s vote for the Leis-Heimlich jail proposal last fall show that there is nothing liberal about this group’s attitude toward crime.
If Leis, Pepper and Portune had had a democratic spirit, they wouldn’t have voted two to one on the County Commission to force this jail on the public. They would have had the courage and conviction to come to the people and explain their point of view and ask for our support. If they were progressive they wouldn’t be talking about raising sales taxes to pay for a jail, they would be talking about raising taxes on business and the wealthy to pay for education, mental health, family counseling, and jobs programs.
We Don’t Have to Take This Jail
Some people say they will vote for the Leis-Pepper-Portune proposal because “we will have a new jail forced on us anyway” and “this is about the best we can get.” We don’t believe that for a minute. We have already shown that the citizens of Hamilton County are intelligent, persistent, and fighters. We won the Collaborative Agreement to control the Cincinnati Police Department. We defeated the anti-GLBT city ordinance. We saw through confusing tactics and ended smoking in all bars and restaurants. We defeated the jail tax. And we’ll do it again.
Nationally the jail population has been growing. In 2005 the national jail population was 747,529. By midyear 2006 this had grown to 766,010. According to the Department of Justice, on June 30, 2006 there were 2,245,189 prisoners were held in Federal or State prisons or in local jails. Most progressive and liberals and even some conservatives agree that we as a nation incarcerate too many people. Hamilton County is a good place to start to say no to the expansion of the jails of the prison-industrial-complex.
In Cincinnati and Hamilton we have a mind-set that leads us to see crime as dealt with solely by police and jails. The view is too narrow. We have to look at how and why our society generates crime and creates criminals. We have to stop that process and that will be done by changing our society. A progressive program to fight crime doesn’t just talk about police and jails; it emphasizes education, social programs, the creation of jobs, union organization, racial equality, and respect for all.
Think globally act locally! Say no to Jail expansion!
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17 Sep 2007 at 09:43 am | #
"Pepper and Portune are increasing the budget, the prestige and the power of Sheriff Simon Leis who no one thinks is a liberal.”
Between the added Sheriffs patrols and the Vortex unit; crime in District One(OTR, the West End, ect..) is down 30%. You just can’t argue with results. I want to see the Sheriff add patrols all over the city and run the criminals clear out of the county for “treatment”. I don’t really care one way or the other about the jail, I’m voting for the tax to increase the power and prestige of the Sheriff.
P.S. The collaborative agreement is the worst thing to ever happen to law enforcement in this town. The five year spike in violent crime, as a result of it, says it all.
17 Sep 2007 at 02:40 pm | #
Just curious.
Do you think the time will ever come for a new jail, and if so, when?
ricland
17 Sep 2007 at 06:02 pm | #
Yeah, you certainly did just that. That criminal Collaborative Agreement was one of the single most horrific things that’s ever happened in this city. A discriminating abomination. Handcuff the police & let the criminals take over. BTW, there was a criminal that sat at the table to hammer this shameful agreement out.
Crime is up, people started the mass migration out out of the city limits after it was signed, there are elderly people being beaten, robbed & killed, and there are the innocent, murdered, raped & irreparably injured children.
And your quote is only part of the picture - I wish I had a dime for everytime I’ve heard, “That Collaborative Agreement was put in place by us so the White sh#t were brought in line & made to obey, to tow that line we’ve made.” I’m not kidding. I’d be a very wealthy individual by now, sunning my naked buns in the South of France.
Yeah, this take all innocent people hostage Collaborative Agreement has certainly been good for business. Criminal business.
17 Sep 2007 at 08:06 pm | #
You fellas making your slogans up as you go, or what?
First, it was a “regressive tax,” now you want to unlock the jails and turn everybody loose.
Tomorrow you’ll probably be calling for the legalization of crack.
You guys need to take a position and stick with it… preferably one that won’t turn this town into another Sodom and Gomorrah.
ricland
17 Sep 2007 at 08:06 pm | #
Here is my biggest problem with the jail tax proposal. The proponents are all saying its a temporary tax. When is the stadium tax supposed to end?
The only article I could find was this one?
http://www.cincypost.com/news/promis101200.html
It says that the commissioners just extended that tax. No vote? What happens in 15 years. Don’t you think whoever is sheriff will say, “Hey we need to extend the tax or else we stop patrolling OTR and cut jobs” And the last time we built a jail 22 years ago, it was supposed to be all we needed. In fifteen are we going to say, Hey we need still more jails or that the Justice Center is falling apart??
If you are going to screw me...just say you are screwing me upfront for life. Don’t act like it will be temporary knowing that when you are long gone, the tax will live on forever.
17 Sep 2007 at 10:22 pm | #
Fine, Bear, I appreciate your honesty.
But what I don’t appreciate is how some people have turned the tax into a scapegoat for everything wrong in society.
Every day they’re blaming it on something else. In the PAC letter above they tried to connect it to everything but the Lindbergh Baby kidnapping.
The jail tax has absolutely nothing to do with “using the jail as a motel for the poor, the mentally ill, and drug addicts.” Where do these people get science fiction like that?
The bums in the Hamilton County Jail belong there.
If there’s anything wrong with the jail tax it’s that it’s not high enough, the proposed jail, not big enough. Leis, Portune, and Pepper need to double it across the board, make the tax twice as high to get twice as many beds—hell, three times as high and three times as many beds!
Then turn Stricker’s boys loose on Washington Park. There must be 200-300 crack heads down there. Pinch them all and throw their dreg on society, dope-smoking asses in jail.
Where they belong.
ricland
17 Sep 2007 at 11:30 pm | #
You start off by confusing the truth and end that way—and everything in between is just more confusing double talk.
Ask the parent of a child killed by a drunk driver if DUI is a violent crime, ask the child of a mother who is beaten within an inch of her life if that was a violent crime, ask the mother of the son jailed for months for petty theft at the Justice Center if the county keeps people for more than “a few days or weeks” ( if their time is in excess of a year - they go North - otherwise they stay here, in most cases). Ask the poor how many luxury cars and boots they intend to buy - then the tax is not regressive.
The Safety Plan fully reflects the adopted policy position of the NAACP, do you really think African Americans and progressive minds are too stupid to see what you are doing?
18 Sep 2007 at 02:21 am | #
Wait a minute—this “adopted NAACP policy postion” you speak of, let’s be honest about that, shall we?
The NAACP membership is no more 100 strong, right? And that’s 100 Chris Smitherman acolytes who’ll drink the Kool-Aide and line-up for seconds, if he tells them to. And that’s to say the NAACP is not in any way, size, shape, or form, the voice of 148,000 black Cincinnati.
And that means the NAACP can adopt anything it wants, including Angelina Jolie, and it still won’t amount to anything more than 100 Smitherman acolytes voting the way he told them to vote.
This means when you and PAC throw around the name NAACP you’re talking about the voice of one man, not the voice of 148,000 black Cincinnatians.
The jail tax is not a black issue. It’s not a Civil Rights issue. It’s not homeless issue. It’s not a domestic violence issue. It’s not a mental health issue. It’s not marijuana issue. It’s not a Green Party issue. It’s not a “Who’s buried in Grant’s Tomb?” issue. It’s not a “Sheriff Leis is the devil and we’ve got to put a stake in his heart” issue.
It’s not any of that.
It’s simply an issue of replacing an old jail with a new jail.
When things get old we replace them.
That’s the concept.
What part of it don’t you understand?
ricland
18 Sep 2007 at 05:43 am | #
Ric,
I hope the NAACP reads that last comment. You are so ridiculously paranoid, acting like Smitherman has mind control over hoards of people. Turn off the Sci-Fi channel and come back to the real world.
Since the “100 votes of the NAACP” do not speak for the entire black community, let’s make sure you understand that your single voice speaks for no one except your delusional self—and it especially does not speak for the tens of thousands of voters who signed a petition.
18 Sep 2007 at 07:40 am | #
Anyone who doubts Smitherman means to parley his NAACP presidency into his lost Council seat needs their head examined. Smitherman wasn’t even a NAACP member before taking it over.
And as I’ve repeatedLY pointed out, since 85% of jail inmates are black, the NAACP should be FOR, not AGAINST a new jail.
Honestly, this is really Theater of the Absurd. This is something that would be uproariously funny weren’t it such an indictment of how black folks are ever willing to drink the Kool-Aid.
We should be in streets demanding a new jail for our young men, but instead, one man is pimping our most prestigious civil rights organization for his own selfish ends.
My people, my people…
ricland
18 Sep 2007 at 09:45 am | #
If crime is down, then why do why need a bigger jail? Almost all of the jail tax money would be going to the new jail and incarceration costs. Only a little would go to Sheriff patrols.
The Collaborative Agreement was put in place because of known problems with CPD. It is the people who are the eyes and ears of the police. A major part of the Agreement was the CPOP program which encourages this cooperation. Other parts are designed to build up trust.
Another problem, which no one has yet mentioned, is that the arrests by the Sheriff patrols do not appear in CPD data. So some comparisons are only approximate.
Better data management is something for which I have long advocated. Too bad the “Comprehensive Safety Plan” does address this fundamental issue.
18 Sep 2007 at 03:15 pm | #
MEP #11: “If crime is down, then why do why need a bigger jail?”
Like I said; I don’t care one way or the other on the jail, I’m voting for the tax to increase the power and prestige of the Sheriff. By the way crime is not down significantly where the Sheriff and Vortex have not been operating; in fact some communities are seeing a spike due to the riffraff being run out of District One.
MEP #11: “Another problem, which no one has yet mentioned, is that the arrests by the Sheriff patrols do not appear in CPD data. So some comparisons are only approximate.”
I said nothing about arrests and by who they were made. I said crime is down 30%; and that refers to criminal complaints filed.
MEP 311: “ A major part of the Agreement was the CPOP program which encourages this cooperation. Other parts are designed to build up trust.”
CPOP is the biggest, most useless, pile of crap ever! It is simply window dressing to make the Coercive Agreement look look something it’s not. Frankly there isn’t anything in that agreement that can be construed as worthwhile, if it comes with the price this city has had to pay.
18 Sep 2007 at 09:54 pm | #
Oh, wrong!
I quit this micro-managing, whiney, piddly, pathetic, smug group over 2 years ago & it is one of the top 25 best choices I’ve ever made. It was just awful.
Since then, they’ve sat down to rubber chicken dinners, big applause & presented amateur powerpoint slide shows to anyone who will watch. I forgot to mention they enjoy patting themselves on the back.
While all this is going on, guess what? The cops are back in the exact same locations cleaning up the messes these CPOPers claim they’ve eradicated. It’s nothing but time-wasting bullsh#t for the CPD. Nothing but false hope & continued fear for those who have to live in the areas that were “cleaned up” & the problems are still there.
You ask any cop on any beat what they think of this CPOP garbage.
Bottom line, the Collaborative Agreement is a sham to placate a bunch of racist criminals, including one who sat at the table to create this mess. Meanwhile, the racist criminals still don’t “trust” the police. They’re criminals & lowlifes. They don’t trust themselves on a good day. This hokey Collaborative Agreement has solved nothing other than to hamstring the police & make honest residents fear for their lives, their families & property.
I don’t care about approximations in data reporting. I use my own 2 eyes to ascertain the climate of any neighborhood. I feel much safer shopping at Findlay Market & visiting in the West End than I would driving thru College Hill. That dump of a neighborhood is ridiculous. I’m surprised the retirement homes don’t have guard towers with persons armed with war weapons & hungry dogs.
MEP, and you’re still running for some sort of political office?
19 Sep 2007 at 09:59 am | #
MEP wants poor people to live in crime filled nieghborhoods. Why does MEP hate poor people so much?
20 Sep 2007 at 06:27 am | #
Bearman raises a legitimate question about the potential length of the tax in light of the broken promises about the length of the stadium tax. There is a simple answer, however.
The sales tax David Pepper and I voted for has a termination time written into the legislation. The tax, if approved by the voters, must end in 15 years. The stadium sales tax had no such limitation written in despite protests by me and others at the time.
To take it a step further, yesterday, Pepper and I voted to create a restricted fund into which the tax proceeds must go by operation of law. The restricted fund details the uses of the funds to ensure that neither this Board, nor any future Board, can use the tax for anything other than the express purposes of the Safety Plan.
In addition, the restricted fund mandates that county administreation run a calculation of the total dollars needed from the sales tax to run the program. If, for any reason, the dollars come in at greater levels than planned, or costs are reduced from what is plenned, in sufficient amounts to permit an early termination of the tax then by operation of law the tax must be terminated early. In no event will it be more than 15 years. So, for example, we are petitioning the State of Ohio for a $25 Million contribution to the cost of construction. If we are successful and we receive that allocation it will allow us to reduce the total amount of sales tax we need and we will be obligated to terminate the tax earlier than 15 years.
In December 1995 I, as a Member of City Council, was on the point in the city’s efforts to have the county modify the sales tax proposal. While we were able to obtain some concessions we were never able to get the county to commit to a specific sunset provision of the tax. Accordingly that tax has gone on. What we propose here has the sunset written in and it is reinforced by the language in the creation of the restricted fund. The combined effect of both will require an end of the tax in 15 years or less.
Sincerely,
Todd Portune
20 Sep 2007 at 10:33 am | #
According to Kevin Osborn’s jail tax article in CityBeat, if approved, this new tax results in a whopping $33 per year, per tax payer.
$33 a YEAR!!!
Oh, my God! It’s going to ruin us all! How will we ever survive it?
How will the POOR be able to afford their cell phones or monthly $100 hair weaves or $50 deigner fingernail maintenance or $100 monthly bar tabs...?
How...?
How...?
How...?
ricland
20 Sep 2007 at 11:36 am | #
And I should add the most dishonest thing about this whole matter is how Chris Smittherman and PAC present it as a civil rights issue.
PAC talks about how the $33 a year per taxpayer will take food off the table in poor homes throughout the County, how little black boys and girls will be forced to go to school hungry and malnourished.
Smitherman turns it into the most shocking infringement of Civil Rights since Jim Crow. He points to the recent case of a woman sent to jail for starving a dog and proclaims,
What...?
The county inmate population is more than 85% black. The Queensgate jail is more than 100 years old. It is substandard. It is overcrowded. It has inmates sleeping on army cots in open areas which is not only demeaning, but a recipe for violence, and yet he has the gall to tell us we shouldn’t build a new jail until “the justice system is fair in Hamilton County”?
Really?
Suppose one of his loved ones ends up stabbed to death in the Queensgate jail because guards couldn’t stop a fight between he and another inmate quick enough?
Would Smitherman still be so sure of himself?
The man is sentencing thousands of black youth to the hazards and horrors of our substandard jail until his perception of the Hamilton County criminal justice system is changed—a perception based on an instance of a woman who starves a dog going to jail for two weeks?
What kind of leadership is this?
Honestly, isn’t that the essence of cutting off your nose to spite your face? Isn’t that the essence of throughly incompetent leadership?
Isn’t that the essence of “We’ll show them they can’t mess with us—everybody, drink the Kool-Aid!”
ricland
20 Sep 2007 at 10:19 pm | #
It seems pointless to respond. Either one believes that under that uniform there is a fallible human being, or one believes all policemen are infallible. Either one believes that the community is the eyes and ears of the police, or one believes that the police know everything they need to know.
21 Sep 2007 at 06:34 am | #
There’s a third possibility, Patton: You’re full of hot air.
The other fellow had it precisely correct—the Collaborative Agreement was a disaster. And that’s because it started out with a bad idea-- the “people” know better than the police.
They don’t.
If they did, places like Over-the-Rhine wouldn’t be war zones. Indeed, if the people know better than the police, why do they need the police to do the job they should be doing?
And let’s be crystal clear what that job is: raising their kids to be law-abiding citizens.
All the Collobarative Agreement did was try to put all the blame on the police. But the police have their act together. Their kids are doing well. Their communities are clean and crime free, so with the Colloborative what you wind up with is theatre of the absurd—the very people responsible for rampant crime: the parents and guardians of the criminals, are telling the police how to do their job.
Honestly, Patton, is Dwight Patton, one-time president of the Black United Front, your idea of a reasonable and disicplined person?
You’ll recall, he tried to bite off a visiting fireman’s thumb who stepped across the Black United Front’s Boycott line during a Bruce Springsteen councert a few years ago. He’s the one who dons Bozo the Clown African garb to get his point across.
What point?
Who knows?
And you want us to believe misfits, grifters, race hustlers, Ponzi scheme artists, defrocked Baptist minsters, and ageing porn stars like the folks who made up the Black United Front
are the “people”? that they had something meaningful to contribute? that they actually helped?
You’re a dangerous man, dude.
ricland
21 Sep 2007 at 06:15 pm | #
I predict the jail tax will be passed and it will be passed precisely because of antics like the suit against Leis.
You fellows over-did it.
You showed the voters what kind of persons you are and the voters don’t like what they see. It’s like what happened with Reece and Smitherman on the council. Like you, these two individuals were missing vast pieces of the puzzle. Like you, they had no sense of honor, integrity or self-respect.
Sure, Leis sent email over his county computer. Sure he used County paper to make those signs, but he did it not to save the $10 or $15 the materials cost, but because in his wildest dreams he never thought a political opponent would stoop to making an issue of it. He never thought there are those out there so bereft of integrity they’d think of, let alone make a federal case out of it.
Who are you people? Where do you come from?
Back in the 70s when we protested the War we never lowered ourselves the way you guys are doing now. We didn’t accuse Nixon of taking government pens home or making personal calls from Air Force One. Our heads weren’t wired that way.
Good thing they weren’t.
We’d still be in Vietnam.
ricland