Skagit County Jail needs more room for DUIs

Aaron Burkhalter

Skagit Valley Herald

January 26, 2010 - 07:00 AM

If Skagit County had $150 million to spare, it would still take four or five years to build the 700-bed jail it needs.

As of today, the county has no money for a new jail and no set proposal to get it.

But Skagit County Jail Chief Gary Shand said with 193 people crammed into a building originally built to hold 83, he needs a solution now. The jail was converted so that it could hold up to 180, but it is 13 over capacity, even as officials avoid booking nonviolent offenders into the facility.

“We need help today, we need help in the interim, and we need help with the new jail,” Shand told the Skagit Valley Herald on Monday. “We’re at critical mass.”

County criminal justice officials met Friday and considered loosening rules to release people early for good behavior, building a temporary facility and extending alternatives to jail time to ease the burden on the jail.

The extra inmates are sleeping on mattresses on the floor or a mattress on a 6-inch-thick plastic “boat bed.” Most single-person cells have been converted to hold two people.

The county has 15 people held at jails in Snohomish and Okanogan counties at rates of about $50 a day.

The jail is turning away people who would normally spend at least one night there, Shand said. The jail can’t keep people with nonviolent misdemeanor offenses, he said.

Skagit County Sheriff’s Office Chief Criminal Deputy Will Reichardt said deputies have arrested people on felony charges — for things like identity theft or forgery — but couldn’t send them to jail. Deputies frequently give citations and a court order instead, a situation Reichardt described as frustrating.

“We want to make cases, prove cases and then we want to hold people accountable,” he said. “It’s very frustrating when you make a case and you have nowhere to put them.”

Shand has requested ongoing meetings with Skagit County’s prosecutor, public defender, sheriff and commissioners to come up with a solution to the ongoing problem.

The group has discussed alternative sentencing, such as community service, home-monitoring shortening sentences for good behavior and building a temporary, low-security facility for nonviolent offenders.

Shand said the jail simply needs more beds. Because the majority of people in the jail are awaiting trial and sentencing, alternative sentences don’t apply to most of those waiting. Of the 126 people in the jail’s medium-to-maximum-security housing area, 73 are “pre-sentence.” Of the 193 people total, 110 are pre-sentence.

County commissioners have been looking for ways to fund the new jail, and the county has considered purchasing property south of the current jail.

“We’ve been overbooked at the jail forever, and the cost is horrendous,” Commissioner Sharon Dillon said. “(But) a full-fledged jail is six, seven, eight years down the road.”

The commissioners seem to favor a three-tenths of one percent sales tax to pay for the estimated $150 million facility, but are reticent to adopt a tax while residents suffer in a poor economy with high unemployment.

But Commissioner Ron Wesen said the sales tax is probably the best answer because it can tax people traveling through the county and doesn’t force property owners to shoulder the cost.

“If you’re not spending money, you don’t have to pay sales tax,” Wesen said. “It’s a choice, not just based on the property you own.”

But, as Commissioner Ken Dahlstedt said, even if the county found the money solution today, the new jail wouldn’t be open for years.

For information on your Washington State DUI please contact our Snohomish County DUI attorneys, King County DUI attorneys, Island County DUI attorneys, or Skagit County DUI attorneys at 425-493-1115 or check out our website at http://www.washdui.com