Calls on Community to Demand Dane County Invest in Care Not Cages

On Thursday, January 18, 2024 the Dane County Board of Supervisors will be voting on RES-286, which would increase the budget for the Jail Consolidation Project by $27.6 Million, bringing the total budget of the project to $197 Million. If this jail is built, it will be the most expensive public works project ever in Dane County by a long shot. But this community has the opportunity to say: no more.

District 2 Supervisor Heidi Wegleitner says, “It’s disappointing that some are so eager to pour more money into the jail project when the Crisis Triage Center appears stalled, behavioral health programs and homeless services are woefully underfunded, and two permanent supportive housing projects at Rethke Terrace and Tree Lane are being shut down.”

This jail will be a towering monument to Madison’s hypocrisy and the racial disparities that Dane County continues to uphold; but it has not been built yet, and we can stop it. As of January 14, the Dane County Jail’s population was 54% Black while Dane County is less than 6% Black. Building a new building is not going to fix that clearly broken and racist system. There is a real, tangible, human cost to incarceration—it is inherently violent and harmful. There is no possible budget big enough to build a “humane jail” because that is something that cannot exist.

The costs to run this jail will be an order of magnitude more than the capital cost to build it. If we build this jail, it will set Dane County on a trajectory of doubling down on incarceration, instead of using those funds on investments that would actually make our community safer. 

AWG is calling on the Dane County community to contact their County Board Supervisor to demand CARE, NOT CAGES and encourage them to fund alternatives to incarceration. We need everyone. Ask your friends and family to contact their supervisor and say NO NEW JAIL. CARE, NOT CAGES!

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About the Abolitionist Working Group

The Abolitionist Working Group (AWG) formed out of the work to Derail the Jail and the Doyle Resolution campaigns to stop the jail expansion and decarcerate Dane County. This group is the home in Madison Area DSA for all abolition-related work. We believe that abolition is a key tenet of socialism as prisons and policing are some of the most direct and personal means of state-driven oppression in our current society.