An Arrest Should Not Be a Death Sentence: The Myth of “Soft on Crime”
This week, I stood alongside the ACLU of Kentucky and coalition partners to speak the truth about what is happening inside Louisville Metro Department of Corrections. Predictably, before the press conference ended, a reporter asked a question I’ve heard before, a question designed to put us on the defensive: Are you being soft on crime? Let me answer that directly, and then let me tell you why that question is itself part of the problem.
What Happened to Miguel
On February 26, 21-year-old Juan Miguel Munoz Penalver was found dead in Louisville Metro Department of Corrections. He is among twenty-plus people who have died in LMDC’s custody since 2021. In five years. In the city jail. In the days before he died, jail staff had placed Miguel on suicide watch, a determination that he needed protection, that he was in crisis. Protocol required checks every 30 minutes. Instead, more than five hours passed between the time a camera recorded him lying motionless on the floor of his cell and when staff found his body.
His family was waiting for him at the courthouse that morning where he was due to appear. That is how they found out he was dead — not from a phone call, not from an explanation. Just an absence where their son, their loved one should have been. This family deserves answers. Louisville deserves answers.
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This Isn’t About Being “Soft”
When reporters and politicians invoke “soft on crime,” they are deploying a political weapon, one specifically designed to end conversations rather than start them. It is a phrase that has been used for decades to silence anyone who dares to ask whether our systems of punishment are actually keeping people safe, or whether they are causing harm while looking tough.
I want to be precise: demanding that jail staff follow their own policies is not soft. Demanding that a young man on suicide watch be checked every thirty minutes, as required, is not soft. Demanding that a family receive an explanation when their child dies in government custody is not soft. What is soft? Tolerating preventable deaths. Shrugging at overcrowding. Allowing people in mental health crisis to be warehoused in facilities unequipped to care for them, year after year, while the body count climbs.
Division Is a Strategy
I’ve said this before and I’ll keep saying it: division is not accidental. It is fueled by intentional political strategy and real economic pain working together. We have leaders and systems that benefit from keeping people divided (by race, by class, by geography), because division distracts from accountability. When folks are dealing with rising costs, unstable housing, and lack of healthcare, it becomes easier for that frustration to be redirected at each other instead of at the systems creating those conditions. The “soft on crime” frame is one tool in that playbook. It redirects anger. It flips the script so that those demanding accountability for a young man’s death are suddenly the ones who have to defend themselves. We cannot let that work.
We Know What Does Work
LMDC is not a mental health treatment facility. We cannot keep placing people who are in crisis into a system that is not built to care for them and then act surprised when they die. We have known about the problems in this jail for years. And we know the solutions: expand citation and release on recognizance, restructure bail practices to credit time served, use judicial discretion, and stop seeking bench warrants for people who owe fines and fees. These are not radical ideas. They are common sense. They save money. And they save lives. The question is not whether change is possible. The question is whether those with decision-making power are willing to act.
Trust Requires Results
Real change happens at the intersection of policy and people power. Policy alone can be undone. People power alone cannot produce systemic change. What we need right now is the political will to do both. We cannot build lasting trust without addressing harm. People know when something ain’t right. And right now, what ain’t right is that an arrest can become a death sentence in this city (borrowing the words of ACLU of KY Executive Director Amber Duke).
We are calling on the Mayor, LMPD, LMDC, the courts, and the Commonwealth’s Attorney to act; not next year, not after the next death. Now. We will keep agitating, organizing, and demanding accountability until no family in Louisville has to wait at a courthouse wondering why their loved one never showed up. History reminds us that real change has always come from people who refused to give up. We are not giving up.
Attica is a trusted civic educator and political agitator who breaks down public policy from an insider’s perspective as a former State Representative. She helps folks understand how government operates, influence legislation, and build power. Attica’s work is amplified through her #AskAttica podcast where she brings leaders to your doorstep, and her #CivicsIn60 videos that call folks to action on statewide issues.
It's all about division.