A crowd marches from the Spokane Convention Center through Riverfront Park to a rally opposing jail expansion on Thursday, June 20, 2019. (Dan Pelle / The Spokesman-Review)
Jeremiah Miller, 39, leads a crowd marching through Riverfront Park to a rally opposing jail expansion on Thursday, June 20, 2019. (Dan Pelle / The Spokesman-Review)
Levi Draheim, 11, of Indian Harbour Beach, Fla., chants “No new jail!” along with a crowd in Riverfront Park on Thursday, June 20, 2019. (Dan Pelle / The Spokesman-Review)
The Rev. Susan Frederick-Gray, president of the Unitarian Universalist Association, leads chants in Riverfront Park after delivering a speech opposing jail expansion on Thursday, June 20, 2019. (Dan Pelle / The Spokesman-Review)
Demonstrators gather in Riverfront Park to rally against building new jails on Thursday, June 20, 2019. (Dan Pelle / The Spokesman-Review)
Hundreds of people gather in Riverfront Park for a rally against building new jails on Thursday, June 20, 2019. (Dan Pelle / The Spokesman-Review)
Demonstrators line Spokane Fall Boulevard at Riverfront Park to get out their message of “no new jails” during a rally on Thursday, June 20, 2019. (Dan Pelle / The Spokesman-Review)
Hundreds of people gather in Riverfront Park for a rally against building new jails on Thursday, June 20, 2019. (Dan Pelle / The Spokesman-Review)
Dalila Sankaran, of Newbury Park, California, joins a rally in Riverfront Park to oppose jail expansion on Thursday, June 20, 2019. (Dan Pelle / The Spokesman-Review)
Jeremiah Miller, 39, leads a crowd marching through Riverfront Park to a rally opposing jail expansion on Thursday, June 20, 2019. (Dan Pelle / The Spokesman-Review)
Nearly 1,000 people, mostly members of local activist groups and Unitarian Universalist churches, gathered in Riverfront Park on Thursday to oppose any effort to build a new jail in Spokane County.
“Jails have become a way of criminalizing poverty, mental illness and addiction,” said the Rev. Susan Frederick-Gray, president of the Unitarian Universalist Association. “And, in the absence of investing in people and programs that lift communities up, we are investing in a system that is fundamentally dehumanizing, violent and cruel.”