LOUISVILLE, Ky. — The ACLU of Kentucky has a demand of incoming Louisville mayor Craig Greenberg, no new jail.
On Tuesday, Amber Duke recited twelve names during a virtual press conference with reporters. They were the names of twelve people who have died this year while in custody at the Louisville Metro Department of Corrections. Duke is the interim executive director of the ACLU of Kentucky and member of Community Stakeholders to End Deaths at LMDC.
With both an incoming Louisville mayor and yet to be selected police chief, Duke and her partners have hopes and demands of these new leaders. “We are facing a humanitarian crisis,” Duke said Tuesday. “The way that you respond to that is in a way that respects people’s humanity. We are not respecting people’s humanity, we are not honoring the twelve lives lost by building a new multi-million dollar jail in their name. That is not the direction we need to move,” Duke added.
Echoing that sentiment on Tuesday was Kungu Njuguna, policy strategist for the ACLU of Kentucky. “That is why we are calling on Mayor-elect Greenberg to publicly and unequivocally state that his administration will not seek to fund or build a new jail but instead use those funds to invest in programs and policies that divert and keep our citizens out of the criminal legal system and our jail,” Njuguna said.
The group is also advocating for free and more readily available phone service for those in custody at LMDC.
An overarching demand from the ACLU is for the jail to improve its mental health resources, as half of the deaths have been from suicide. Regarding overcrowding, group members point to a high number of arrests of non-violent offenders. “If police stop arresting for nonviolent and instead issue citations or help someone get to mental health or substance use services, then our jail would not be overcrowded,” Carla Wallace of the Fairness Campaign said.
Resoundingly, Duke and her colleague say spending hundreds of millions of dollars on a new jail would be a costly misstep for the city.