ShutdownDC, Invest in Black Communities! Call-In Day

The Philadelphia budget is up for debate right now. Call, tweet and email Mayor Kenney and City Council and tell to show us that #BlackLivesMatter by shutting down the Detention Center!

Phone Numbers & Sample Call, Email, Tweet language: https://decarceratepa.info/shutdowndc_script

The Detention Center is almost 60 years old, and is in terrible condition beyond repair. It is the only jail facility that still cages over 30 people together crammed in “dormitory” cells, which made social distancing impossible and left people extremely vulnerable in this global pandemic. Unsurprisingly, DC has the highest rate of COVID19 of all facilities, and people do not have access to the medical treatment they need. During this COVID crisis, people incarcerated at DC have been abandoned to die - locked in cells 23+ hours a day without soap, cleaning supplies, proper masks, or quality food. - The Detention Center also has the “behavioral health unit”, where people suffering from mental illness are isolated, stigmatized, stripped naked, and denied visits. People with mental illness should be home and supported with the mental health treatment they need, not in cages treated like they are disposable. We need our city to divest from prisons and invest in mental health resources!

We need to end funding of policing, prosecuting and prisons. If we defund the criminal punishment system in the City of Philadelphia, we would have millions to invest in schools, housing, mental health treatment, harm reduction, and other supports that actually prevent violence and crimes of survival. It is time to close another of Philadelphia’s jails - the Detention Center - and reinvest that money in communities that have been disinvested from for generations.

As our movements in the streets cry out to #DefundThePolice, we demand that Philadelphia also #DefundthePrisons, #DefundtheDA, #EndCashBail and pretrial detention, and dismantle all forms of carceral punishment.

#racialjustice