![LaTonya Goldsby of Black Lives Matter Cleveland called for increased transparency, an end to the use of chemical weapons and an outside investigation of conditions inside the jail. [Matthew Richmond / Ideastream Public Media]](https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/9c74437/2147483647/strip/true/crop/3000x1687+0+0/resize/840x472!/format/webp/quality/90/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2Flegacy%2Fuploads%2F2021%2F8%2F14%2Fgoldsby_rally.jpg)
Local activists rallied Saturday outside the Justice Center in Downtown Cleveland in response to recent reports of unusually restrictive or potentially unsafe policies at the Cuyahoga County Jail, sexual assault accusations against corrections officers and longstanding complaints about conditions inside the jail.
“We demand a halt on the construction of the new jail until this house is clean,” Black Lives Matter Cleveland co-founder LaTonya Goldsby told a couple dozen members of Black Lives Matter, the Cuyahoga County Jail Coalition and other groups gathered near the Lakeside Avenue entrance to the courthouse.
Mark Owens left the jail August 6 shortly after an arrest for breaking and entering. Owens said the conditions in the jail right now are worse than other times he’s been inside.
“They got you locked down all day every day. You can’t get in contact with your lawyer. You can’t get in contact with your family,” Owens said. “You in a cell for almost 22, 23 hours a day. You ain’t even guilty yet.”
Owens said, in the past, people in the jail would be out of their cells, in the common areas, for around 12 hours of the day.
“They need to shut this place down,” Owens said.
Jail officials have struggled with staffing shortages for some time now. A few days ago, the county proposed substantial raises and other incentives to keep officers on the job and potentially attract new hires.
The county is in the process of building a new jail, somewhere outside Downtown Cleveland, that would cost around $400 million. A new mental health diversion center has opened to offer services outside of a jail setting.
There are also plans to build a new central booking area in the jail that would speed up the bail process, allowing quicker release for people arrested for low-level offenses.
LaTonya Goldsby questions whether anything will come of all these plans.
“We want to know what’s actually going on inside this jail. What improvements have been made?” Goldsby said. “Because it seems to me things have fallen by the wayside.”
