Until changes happen, 'no' to a new jail
There
isn't much to be said about having another jail vote in May except what
this article by Professor Jeff Cox states most eloquently in the
December issue of The Prairie Progressive. The committee that has been
formed to address the issue of race in Johnson County incarceration can
meet and come up with all the suggestions they want, but until those
suggestions are implemented and measurable changes occur we see no
reason to vote for a new, bigger jail, especially one that has simply
reduced the number of beds by about 60, but will "rough in" the
additional cells so they can be funded separately by the Supervisors
through the budget process.
--Carol deProsse
--Caroline Dieterle
Don’t You Dare Use the “R” Word
The
successful campaign to defeat the new Johnson County jail produced unusual
political alliances. The small Vote No committee included libertarians,
Republican central committee members, Trotskyites, AARP officers, and a few
aging Democrats with civil liberties sympathies. On the other side was the
entire Democratic Party in Johnson County, including all local elected
officials who took a position with the honorable exception of city council
member Jim Throgmorton.
The organizations that endorsed the
jail constitute a virtual catalog of the local Liberal Establishment: the
Johnson County Democratic Party, Iowa City Federation of Labor, Johnson County
Bar Association, Iowa City City Council, League of Women Voters, University of
Iowa Student Government, Iowa City Area Crimestoppers, Johnson County Local
Homeless Coordinating Board, Painters & Allied Trades District Council 81,
Public Professional & Maintenance Employees Local 2003, and (my favorite)
The “Friends of Historic Preservation”.
How could all of these liberal
organizations endorse a proposal to jail even more victims of the war on drugs,
and more African-Americans? The answer to that question lies in the initial
success of the Jail Coordinating Committee in disguising the causes of
over-incarceration in Johnson County. Approximately 50 beds were needed to deal
with jail overcrowding, which still left 80-100 to explain. Jail advocates said
that we must “plan for growth”, but they were unable to explain who would be
incarcerated in the new jail cells.
Local statistics about race were
readily available to anyone who asked: 40% of those incarcerated locally are
African Americans, who constitute slightly less than 6% of the population of
Johnson County. All the Vote No campaign had to do was cite these figures to
cause an electoral turnaround among many Iowa City liberals (note the voting
totals at Horace Mann and
Longfellow schools). Sheriff Pulkrabek responded to these figures with a series
of dizzying nonsequiturs, while other liberal Democratic leaders responded with
simple indignation that you would dare raise the race issue.
There is a
considerable degree of denial about race among Iowa City liberals. It would be
worthwhile having a video of the meeting of the local chapter of the American
Civil Liberties Union, which was actually divided on whether to take a position
on the issues of racial disparity raised by the Vote No campaign. One member
denied that the 40/6 ratio should even be discussed as evidence of racism on
the local level, and this denial has continued after the defeat of the jail. Jail
supporter and Press Citizen columnist Bob Elliott, normally a reasonable person,
published a post-defeat article entitled “lies, damn lies, and statistics” in which
he suggested that even raising the issue of racial disparity was an
“insinuation” of racism in the community, as if that were intrinsically
outrageous. Pro-jail statistician John Neff posted on Facebook an outright
denial that racism was an important factor in the 40/6 ratio.
Well, perhaps these
liberal Democrats are right, and there is no racism at all to be found in our
well-meaning and color-blind People’s Republic of Johnson County. It is certainly
true that calling people racists, or even public policy issues racist, is
counterproductive. But it is equally true that this community needs to face up
to the racial polarization that has occurred in Johnson County, and especially in
Iowa City, over the growth of a working class African American population. The
proposed jail does not exist in isolation from other racial issues that have
not been addressed.
In 2009 a homeless
immigrant from Africa, John Deng, was shot and killed by an off-duty Sheriff’s
Deputy dressed in civilian clothes. This incident was referred by
County Attorney Janet Lyness to the office of Iowa Attorney General Thomas
Miller, who issued a report in September of 2009 that is well worth reading.
Like almost all reports on police killings, the report exonerates the officer,
but in this case the racially charged nature of the incident is simply whitewashed.
The report wades through a cloud of contradictory evidence, but it appears that
one way to read this incident is that a white man came out of a bar and got into
a fight with a highly intoxicated black man because he was spilling cans, apparently
retrieved from dumpsters, on to the street. It is possible that John Deng was
using what the report describes as a “small knife” to defend himself against this attack, although
that is unclear. What is clear is that an off-duty (white) sheriff’s deputy
arrived, intervened in the fight, watched the white man knock the black man
down, ordered the white man to leave (which he refused to do), and then when
the almost unbelievably intoxicated black man (blood alcohol of .295) stood up,
shot and killed him. As far as we know, County Attorney Lyness never filed any
charges against the white man. John Deng has been, for the most part,
forgotten.
As the investigation
into the John Deng killing proceeded, the Iowa City Council was imposing
an unprecedented curfew
on young people. Unlike other Iowa cities, Iowa City had never imposed a
teenage curfew, largely on civil liberties grounds. Why impose one in 2009? In
the color-blind language of the curfew resolution: “Whereas, persons under the
age of eighteen are particularly susceptible by their lack of maturity and experience
to participate in unlawful and gang-related activities..... the City has found
that there has been a significant breakdown in the supervision and guidance normally
provided by parents and guardians for juveniles resulting in an increase in crimes
and other unacceptable behavior”, etc. In other words, we now have black
teenagers in town, and therefore must put them under police supervision.
Two years later the
irresponsible behavior of black young people came up again. For many years
white bus passengers have waited in cold weather behind the glass doors of the
Old Capitol mall, watching for the bus. As the number of African-American
students at City High and Southeast Junior High grew, many came downtown after
school, and made the mall a kind of gathering place. In response to complaints
about their behavior, a new apartheid-style sign appeared: “Stand Ten Feet Back
from the Door”, complete with a security guard to enforce the rule. Now bus
passengers either have to wait outside in the cold, or stand behind the sign
under the supervision of a security guard. As someone who grew up in the legally segregated south, I can recognize signs telling black people where to stand and sit when I see them. So can they.
Jail advocates will
no doubt be back soon with new proposals to incarcerate
more
African-Americans and more victims of the war on drugs. Perhaps this time around, we can
actually have a community conversation about how to deal with issues of racial
justice in Johnson County.
— Jeff Cox
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