CLEVELAND — Evan O’Reilly is with Care Not Cages, an organization that aims to lower incarceration in the area, and he said building a new Cuyahoga County Jail won’t advance their goal.

What You Need To Know

  • The Care Not Cages organization had the first of a series of community forums on alternatives to incarceration

  • This comes during talks for a new Cuyahoga County Jail

  • The county has approved buying the land but has not approved a funding source yet for the new jail

“The main thing is that we still believe they can substantially lower the population in the Cuyahoga County Jail by adopting new policies that divert people from needing to be in the jail in the first place," O'Reilly said. 

The county has purchased land for a $750 million new jail in Garfield Heights, moving it away from Downtown Cleveland. The county hasn’t determined a funding source for the new facility yet. O’Reilly said the current jail is in a good spot since it’s in the same building as the county courthouse. The appeals court is across the street.

“You’re walking distance from a lot of the homeless services," O'Reilly said. "You’re walking distance from some free clinics, definitely a lot of legal services, and as far as we know there is not that same kind of infrastructure in Garfield Heights.”

He’s starting a series of community forums about alternatives to jailing people. His first meeting addressed care responses, where a trained mental health professional can respond to non-violent 911 calls instead of police.

Josiah Quarles is the co-founder of REACH, an organization advocating for trained professionals to respond to a mental health emergencies, or non-violent 911 calls instead of police.

“Simply the presence itself of badges, guns, arrest power, sirens can be very triggering and escalate situations rather than de-escalate them," Quarles said. 

O’Reilly said alternative responses could lower the jail population, since someone could get the services they need instead of just being thrown in jail.

“I really think these are the kinda calls that the police don’t even really wanna take," O'Reilly said. "So I think that could be a really great thing for our community and would definitely help to keep people out of the jail as well."