"Romantic" is exactly right, and the cultural change I described has made our argument totally irrelevant.

Washtenaw County is only a tiny portion of a state rapidly declining in economic and political importance. Judges and legislatures are certainly not going to reconsider draconian laws just because our county has a jail they regard as inadequate. If the nation were to abruptly come to its senses, a surplus of cells on Hogback Road (or elsewhere) is not going to be any bulwark against sanity.

What we do have some control over in our county is how people are treated. We can choose to recognize mental illness and provide help for those individuals. We can create workable alternatives to incarceration. But none of this can happen without the resources, without working within the criminal justice system we have, which insists on its own perceived needs being met.

To stand in defiance would seem heroic, but it would be self-defeating, and have a significant human cost. For one thing, the existing jail is not a humane place to keep people. For another, the jail is not the only issue of concern. If we allowed outsiders to intervene to force a new jail on us, we would also be allowing them to choose our fiscal priorities, and hence our public policy in many fields.