The View From Prospect Hill for the week of June 21

Sheriff DiPaola, thank you for the offer, but Somerville does not want your jail.
We do not want your jail because caging hundreds of yet-to-be convicted prisoners is not the way to build a better police station. Just ask the police, they’ll tell you.

   We do not want your jail because East Somerville needs more parks and open space, not a gray building of incarceration to tower over its homes and children.
   We do not want your jail because we don‚Äôt need it. We need a train station, an improved tax base and wise development at Assembly Square.
   We do not want your jail because we do not want to live next to a reminder of the 2.2 million people incarcerated in this country today. 
   We do not want your jail because we do not want to see disenfranchised folks walk through our community in cuffs every day.
   Sheriff DiPaola, we understand you‚Äôre not a bad guy.
   We understand you believe you‚Äôre acting humanely in moving prisoners from the small and antiquated Middlesex County Jail in East Cambridge.
   We understand you‚Äôre not a law and order lock ‚Äòem up Sheriff. We understand you oppose mandatory minimum sentences for non-violent drug offenders.
   But most importantly, we understand our community. And our community does not want your prison.