Santa Barbara’s New County Jail Opens for Company

It may possibly not have been Moses descending from Mt. Sinai keeping the 10 Commandments aloft, but by Santa Barbara expectations, it was in some ways the future most effective matter. Previous Thursday, Sheriff Bill Brown held a ceremonial ribbon cutting for the new North County Jail he promised to develop when he first ran for workplace in 2006. Fifteen many years later, 400 persons showed up to celebrate an accomplishment that eluded two previous sheriffs, Jim Thomas and Jim Anderson. 

Throughout his remarks, Brown spoke about how he had traveled around the state, inspecting other facilities to find what worked and what didn’t. “We wanted it to be bright, modern day, and clean up. We undoubtedly did not want it to have the physical appearance of an assemblage of cages,” he stated. “There’s not a one metal bar in this jail. We wished it to be a location of inspiration and studying and hope.” To underscore this place, Brown mentioned, the Latin phrase Faber est quisque fortunae suae had been inscribed over the archway of the entrance: “Every person is the architect of their individual future.”

Brown also borrowed a line from Nelson Mandela, who had famously remarked, “It is stated that no 1 certainly appreciates a country right until just one has been inside of its jails.” By that measurement, Santa Barbara’s most important jail just off Calle Real — built in 1971 — has long mirrored inadequately on the Santa Barbara local community. It has been the subject of “cruel and inhuman” lawsuits virtually from the day it opened. A hodgepodge of improvised wings and hallways, it was stitched alongside one another in excess of time to offer with the serious overcrowding. In a lot less dire terms, Brown likes to describe the jail as the county’s variation of the Winchester Thriller Residence.

When Brown to start with ran for countywide workplace, he preached the gospel of diversion, recovery, prevention — anything that would reduced the jail’s stubborn recidivism amount. He promised his new jail, which was designed to property 376 inmates, would embody these core values. In the yrs due to the fact, on the other hand, the political winds blowing on legal justice have shifted significantly. Right now, the perceived problem is the legal guidelines and prison justice…