Public Safety; Incarceration & Mental Health

In light of recent discussions to build a new jail in Santa Clara County, we want to highlight community voices surrounding the topic of incarceration and mental health. Mental health cases within the Black community are often overlooked and those with serious mental health illnesses are criminalized instead of being rehabilitated. Similarly, mental health cases are disproportionately high among the Black community. We want to create a space to discuss the correlation between incarceration and mental health, talk about alternatives to incarceration, and how the current system could be more humane.