POUGHKEEPSIE, N.Y. -- Tracy Hunter-Givens and members of End the New Jim Crow Action Network say a new $192 million jail is the wrong move for Dutchess County.
That's why on Saturday, ENJAN hosted a teach-in, regarding alternatives to building a larger jail.
“When someone gets out of jail, they need a place to sleep, food to eat, clothes to wear, and a job," Hunter-Givens said. "If we work on doing that for those people, then we won’t have so many jails and they certainly won’t be overcrowded.”
ENJAN say overcrowding in correctional facilities is due to a larger problem related to mass incarceration. The group is calling on the county to implement several proposals that they say would significantly reduce the number of people in jail and increase public safety.
The event also included a panel discussion and workshops.
“So many people are held in these local county jails on non-violent crimes, there’s bail set they can’t meet the bail, they then go to jail," said Michael Sussman, a civil rights attorney. "They’re often in the jail longer than their sentence would be.”
“What Dutchess County is attempting to do is build a facility that we can expand services to present individuals, divert them from coming into the county jail,” said Marc Molinaro, Dutchess County Executive.
According to Molinaro, the county has more than 400 inmates, but only has capacity for 250.
He says they're already monitoring the jail population with specific programs that will help inmates transition back into society. Molinaro says he also welcomes all dialogue about the proposed project.
"What we're doing is very much about preventing criminal behavior and giving people the tools necessary to transition back into the community so we can drive down inmate population," Molinaro said. "But what we won't do is maintain a facility that is too small for even half of our population."
The project is currently in the design stages. Molinaro expects the project to go out of bids early next year.