Week Five: Downtown Detroit Jail

After browsing through articles, I chose this article on the demolition of the partially-built jail in downtown Detroit and the building of a $533-million criminal justice complex (thanks to Dan Gilbert). This article caught my eye because last week Yusuf touched on this topic briefly, and asked us “why do we need more jails?” What really struck me about this article that I didn’t know before, is that Gilbert had initially bought the property planning to build a Major League Soccer stadium on it. When Detroit was not chosen for an expansion team, Gilbert decided on building a criminal justice complex.

When Gilbert first bought the property and planned on building a soccer stadium on it, I bet there were plenty of people who supported him for this decision and thought he would be bettering Detroit by doing so. The fact that he has instead chosen to build a criminal justice complex on the property proves how little he cares for the community of Detroit, and just how money-driven he is. He could care less what ends up on the property. For money-hungry businessmen like Dan Gilbert, the prison-industrial complex is simply another way to rake in some more money.

Why are we as a country okay with building more jails, prisons, and detention centers like the United States’ highest incarceration rate in the world has just become the norm? The fact that there is a “demand” for these facilities should be a big enough wake-up call that we need to be making some changes. Instead of investing money into these facilities and profiting off of the unjust incarceration of millions, primarily men of color, we should be investing money into schools, community centers, and safe places that will actually better the community.