A RESOLUTION endorsing a vision for The City of Seattle to become a city with zero use of detention for youth, and establishing a path forward to develop policies that eliminate the need for youth detention.
Agenda Item 23 Resolution 31614 Endorsing a vision for the City of Seattle to become a city with zero use of detention for youth and establishing a path forward to develop policies that eliminate the need for youth detention. The committee recommends the resolution be adopted. Thank you. Councilmember Harrell. Thank you. Sister Danish. Sister Danish. Thank you for clapping on my last piece of legislation because this new legislation we're about to talk about recognizes that from the time your family and I grew up in the streets of Seattle, Times of change, we become a country and a city of mass incarceration. And it's I'll tell you, it's amazing what we can do when no one really is doing it for the credit. And in that spirit, I want to recognize the champion and leader of this legislation and turn the microphone over to Councilmember Mike O'Brien. And there's some amendment, an amendment I think the community is is approved. And I'll defer to you and I'll reserve my comments for toward the end. Great. Thank you so much, Councilmember Harrell. I would like to move to amend this by substituting version four for version three. Just a note for those of you looking online, the the amended version in our on our books says version three. But that's actually the version four. We just failed to correct that. So the amended add, the amendment adds a few more recitals, cleans up some language, also adds a source for a question that came up about one of the recitals during committee. I want to say that I acknowledge all my colleagues who were at the committee that worked through that, that language we took back to community and community folks had been working on this, had a chance to review that. And my understanding is that they support the amendments that I'm putting forward today. So I would move substituting version four for version three that. Can I get. Any questions or comments all in favor of substituting version four for version three vote? I oppose Vote No. The motion carries. We have version four in front of us. So, Councilman Harold, you mind if I speak to it and then I'll. I'll sit down. I want to start by acknowledging the the woman who testified about this resolution being could be seen as just a an act of good faith, but nothing else changes. And I think that's absolutely right. This is a very important step today for the city to take this action. And I think this is bold action. But this by itself would do nothing to change the reality out there. And we just acknowledge that this is a step in a very long process, a process that I know folks in the community have been working on for many years. And we have a lot of other steps to take going forward. Specifically, one of the items that this resolution calls out as an intent of the city council to fund community based organizations that are doing anti-racist work and have been working to eliminate the tension of youth, that we can help fund their work going forward, because we recognize that despite some very good efforts for a number of years , the reality is still really embarrassing about how many youth are in detention. And we're not going to change it by continuing the past practices. We need to center this work around communities who are directly impacted, specifically young black people who are being put in jail. They need to be a part of the solution. I want to. I really want to thank Community who has been working so hard on raising awareness around this and just acknowledge that I certainly would not be standing here today in support of this without a lot of really hard work on your part to get me to where I am. So thank you for doing that work. Other questions or comments. Council members, I want you to. Thank you, President Burgess. First, I would like to join Councilmember Ryan in thanking all the activists who put forward the vision of zero youth detentions for the city and organized to force it on the city's agenda. And this is really a culmination in some ways, but certainly not the end of a growing movement against a racism that is so integral to our criminal justice system. I wanted to list some sobering facts. The U.S. has more people in prison than any other country in the history of the world. The constitutional amendment that bans slavery makes an exception for people in prison, and there is more forced labor of prisoners today than there was at the height of slavery before the Civil War. Corporations across the country are making staggering profits off this prison labor. The majority of prisoners in the United States are people of color, with African-American people alone making up nearly 1 million of the 2.3 million incarcerated individuals. That racial disproportion extends to youth detentions right here in Seattle, and it is completely unacceptable. Incarcerating young people is inhumane, destructive, and it is an indictment of our whole society. I will be supporting this resolution and at the same time, we should be clear that words are not enough. This is the same council that, with one exception, voted for the New Year jail only months ago. I appreciate I appreciate all council members voting on this resolution, and I appreciate Councilmember O'Brien's work on this. And we also should fight to make sure that these excellent sentiments will be reflected in the upcoming budget and in the upcoming policies that will be carved by City Hall policies on funding for youth jobs, funding for apprenticeship programs, targeted, targeted towards inner city young people programs and policy advocacy to end the racial biases in schools. A real push to address inequality by passing a millionaires tax in Seattle to fund mass transit and education and policies. Bold policies to address the deep housing unaffordability in our city. Thank you again. I'll be voting yes and thank. Thank you. So I will be supporting this as well. And I'm speaking with my former prosecuting attorney's hat on. So thanks to to Mike's eyes, Mike Moynihan here today. He's over there. Mike, I want to say thank you to Mike O'Brien, of course. But Mike Moynihan, thank you for coming to our table last week. And I appreciate all the work that you have done and you will be doing, and I look forward to working with you . So I want to say this. This is called Vision Zero detention, but it's got to be more than a vision. It has to be a commitment. And I'm really excited about this prospect. A couple of things. And again, we talked about this last week with the two mikes, and that is following through with more than just this community, but with our city as a whole, with our school district, with the community organizations and with the youths themselves. I think there are voices that have not been heard. Bring them to the table and figure what we can do to really make changes here. And the kinds of alternatives to incarceration that we have seen that works are the alternative dispute resolution, restorative justice programs. I worked on these as just when they were nascent when I was at King County. We know that they can work when we've got people working behind them and with the entire community. I also want to work closely with our partners, our judges in the municipal court, in King County Court with King County Prosecuting Attorney's Office. Dan Soderberg himself has recently proposed something that is called the Family Intervention and Restorative Services, and it's geared to provide services to families and to youth when there are problems in that family and those that are struggling with domestic violence. We know that juvenile DV is a problem because it rarely has intimate partner violence, but it does show up in families. And families, of course, do not want to see their children going into jail. But we need that rehabilitative services and as council members want just spoke to having this in our budget coming up this coming year is going to be important. So I just want to say this, that including the community, we want to listen to all voices. We want to protect the youth. And we want to have a good evaluation of what it is that we're putting together. I, frankly, want to see this as a national model. My goal would be to get this in place this year and to make sure that everybody feels safe, every neighborhood feels safe, and that the violence is reduced in our city citywide. As a father. I just want to add a few words. Of course, I want to thank the cast members. O'BRIEN And so on. Who led the charge. On the council? But, you know, we wouldn't even be here today with the resolution if it wasn't really for you, the activists. They're the ones that create the huge pressure in the county and also in the city. Like, so often, the best legislation in the city really comes from the people who organize and quite honestly, force the decision makers to face the reality that often we don't want to face. I do want to make two small points. One is we have to make sure that the resolutions followed up by actually devoting funds in our budget won't do any good just to do resolution if we don't fund what we need to do to make sure that services get out. And secondly, and this is a broader sort of horizon, we would be in a very ironic situation if we focus our attention on assuring that fewer youths become incarcerated, and yet we change the definition of youth so that more and more of them are being tried as adults, which has been the trend. So we have to also be alert to make sure that we do not have our youth actually end up being in jail as adults. So that's another effort that we have to continue to watch. Thank you. Thank you. Councilmember Harrell, you can close discussion. I'm going to take it home. In King County. A very unfortunate fact is that one third of the juvenile domestic violence cases are right here at home in Seattle. One third of these cases are ours. You know, a few few years ago, I was I was working here in the county, and I got a call from the public school person and they said, my daughter, who was in middle school at the time, was assaulted. And being her father and she is the youngest. I as a father, I was ready to kick some butt here who assaulted my daughter. And I found out what had happened and talk to my daughter. And she was fine. But she she required a little medical attention. But it was it was a boy. And so I insisted on getting the right approval to go up there and see this boy. And the school officials were a little concerned about what this father was going to do. And I said, I want to just meet this young man. And so it a supervised visit. And I got to know him. And as it turned out, as boys would be, he actually had a crush on my daughter and I spent time with him. And I subsequently would take him out to lunch to get to know him. And he didn't know his father and he was being raised by his grandfather. And this is a pretty serious event because the youth authorities could have very well been involved. He could a very well been in custody. And it was a very serious matter at the time. And I share that story with you to say that, as I said, a committee that it is completely unnatural for a youth to commit violence, to hate himself and hate others around him. That our country now and I talked about such a dinosaur because we used to run these streets and we were much younger and still do you know, I don't run the streets anymore, but but the Times Times were quite different from those dinosaur days to when I grew up to now we have witnessed firsthand what this country is doing to to our own to our own people, massive incarceration. I mean, we've most of us in here have read the book, The New Jim Crow Laws, and we're familiar with the studies coming out. It's a travesty in this country. So this vision is a is the is a humane vision. It's a smart vision. And again, all of my great colleagues have said the right things. We're going to put some resources behind this. Thank you. The community activist. And remember, I preface this by saying it's amazing what happens when really no one cares about the credit. I do want to thank Mr. Michael Moynihan for coming to the table. And it was an honor to invite you to the table. You blessed us with your presence. Ariel Heart from ending the prison industrial complex. Ariel Thank you. Thank you for your community activism. And again, I look forward to the unanimous vote and it is our honor to serve you. This is just the beginning of this fight. Thank you very much. Thank you. All in favor of adopting Resolution 31614 vote i. I oppose vote no. The resolution is unanimously adopted and the chair will sign it. Thank you. There's a different but related matter that I'll mention now. The Seattle School Board will vote Wednesday evening of this week on a new policy greatly restricting, if not prohibiting out of school suspensions . And we know. We know that some of these issues that we've been discussing over the last several months with regard to juvenile detention at the facility up at 14th Avenue, start really early in life. And so this is a letter to the school board and to the superintendent of our school district having the council weigh in on this topic and urging them to adopt new policies which are similar to what the city has adopted, both in our families in education levy and also in our Seattle preschool program, which specifically prohibit suspensions or expulsions. And isn't it sad that we have to adopt that kind of policy for three and four year olds in preschool? So, colleagues, I'm going to circulate this letter here on the dais for you to consider. And we talked about it briefly this morning and briefing. And if you would sign that, I'd appreciate it. The report of the Seattle Public Utilities and Neighborhoods Committee. Please read Item 24.