Fox Eleven

Which brings us to the question people across Allegheny County are asking: How did this county come to release a man like this so easily? Part of the answer is a decade of deliberate policy. Some of it was paid for by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation when it awarded Allegheny County a Safety and Justice Challenge grant. The initiative describes its mission as fighting “the misuse and overuse of jails.” The county’s own first-year report is blunt about what the money was for: “to reduce the population of the Allegheny County Jail by 20%.” The county beat that goal. It reported a 36% reduction in its jail population during that first two-year grant. The MacArthur Foundation then renewed: $2 million in 2020, $1.17 million in 2022 over four years, and $334,000 in 2024. In all, $5.5 million since 2018. The county has said it was chosen for the 2021 renewal “based on the promise and progress of work to date.” In other words, results got rewarded. washingtonexaminer.com/opini…