New Cells, Felon Transfers Help Cut Jail Crush Voters Have Approved A $30 Million Sales Tax Increase To Finance A Permanent 1,000-Bed Jail
Construction of new cells and less time behind bars for felons helped cut jail overcrowding in Washington state over the past year, a law-enforcement survey indicates.
The average daily population in county and municipal lockups rose from 8,868, 14.2 percent over capacity in 1995, to 9,184, 10.6 percent over capacity in 1996, according to the ninth annual report by the Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs.
“Basically, we’re starting to get a handle on this problem in the major areas,” said Dale Miller, principal author of the report, in a telephone interview Thursday.
New jails have been opened in Washington’s two most populous counties, and the average stay for sentenced felons statewide declined by 14 percent to an average of 40.7 days.
The reason for the decline is not entirely clear, said Miller and Dave Fallen, human services coordinator in the state Office of Financial Management and former executive director of the Sentencing Guidelines Commission.
“We know that the length of the sentences is not down,” Fallen said.
King County jail director Art Wallenstein said quicker transfer of felony convicts to the state prison system probably helped cut the average jail stay for felons in Seattle by 8.5 percent to 40.7 days.
In Pierce County, the average stay was cut by more than 17 percent to 42.2 days largely through alternative punishment such as electronic home detention, work release and road crews, said Capt. Terry L. Walters, the jail’s programs commander.
In addition, Walters said, all inmates can get their sentences reduced by as much as one-third through “good time,” formerly available only to trusties.
Both changes were made in response to a lawsuit filed by inmates because of overcrowding.
“Good-time policies vary dramatically from county to county,” Fallen said.
Miller said roughly 90 percent of the 2.5 million jail admissions a year involve misdemeanors, but felony prisoners are locked up longer, accounting for more than half the jail population in counties like King, Pierce, Snohomish and Clark.
Statewide jail capacity rose by 6.9 percent to 8,303 beds, mostly from the opening of a $5.9 million temporary lockup in a prefabricated steel structure with 500 beds as part of the lawsuit settlement in Pierce County.
Voters have approved a $30 million sales tax increase to finance a permanent 1,000-bed jail is scheduled for construction within five years.
In neighboring King County, which ranked third among counties in overcrowding last year at 44.4 percent over capacity, an 896-bed regional jail and court complex was opened in March, too recently to affect the statistics.
The other most jam-packed county jails last year were Lewis, 60.4 percent over capacity; Grant, 56.6 percent; Thurston, 48.4 percent; and Benton, 44 percent.
In Grant County, Sheriff Bill Wiester began housing inmates in three 15- by 25-foot tents that were erected on concrete foundations in the jail yard last July. The county is building a 100-bed minimum-security addition for non-violent misdemeanor convicts.
Last fall, with nearly 100 inmates sleeping on the floor, Snohomish County Corrections Director Bill Harper said he had begun talking with officials in other counties about renting space in their jails.
The report also showed far less overcrowding in municipal jails, except for Renton, which was 73 percent over its 31-inmate capacity.
Construction of a new 50-bed jail in Renton is set for January 1999, but the Seattle suburb will still lack funds to hire enough guards and other staff, jail manager Penny Bartley told the South County Journal.
“It’s not going to get better unless there’s more space or there are significant reductions in sentences or other options for detention,” Bartley said. “We can build it as big as we want and it will be filled by nature of the fact that if judges know there’s jail space, they will sentence people to jail.”
Similarly, the average inmate population at the new King County lockup in Kent is 520, and 256 cells remain closed for lack of staffing, said Jim Harms, a county adult detention program analyst.
“You can build as many as you need, but the question is, do you have the funding to operate them?” Harms told the South County Journal.
xxxx ROOM TO SPARE The least crowded jails were in sparsely populated, isolated counties - Garfield at 9 percent of capacity, Columbia at 11.4 percent, Ferry at 49.7, Wahkiakum at 59.3 and Lincoln at 61.5 percent.