As part of our work to in the No New SF Jail Coalition, Critical Resistance has worked to fight jail expansion and criminalization in the San Francisco Bay Area since 2013. As we’ve fought to decarcerate San Francisco, successfully stopping the construction of a new multi-million dollar jail in 2015 and also closing County Jail #4 at 850 Bryant in downtown San Francisco, we’ve been working closely with people who are locked up throughout SF’s jail system.
In 2019, we interviewed people caged inside SF County Jails to centralize the experiences, insights, needs and voices of the people currently locked up in San Francisco’s jails. In these interviews, imprisoned people inside San Francisco’s jails uplift their resilience in the face of inhumane and torturous conditions. Their voices fuel the coalition’s demands in both fighting against criminalization and fighting for strong and healthy communities.