More Jails Isn’t Only Solution

In any given week I come across a whole cell block of people I think need to be locked up. For example, my daughter rode her bike to Spokane’s Riverfront Park with a friend a few days ago.

While at the park a greasy guy who security officers later said was a convicted sex offender started to harass the two girls.

My immediate response? Jail him, now.

A few days later a punk pointed a gun at my kid’s school bus. The punk and his buddy got a good laugh when the bus driver sped away.

The driver and I talked it over and we agreed: Punk and buddy should be packed away.

And I keep seeing my favorite mental case on the street.

When we meet he threatens to plant an axe in the backs of people I know.

Off to the padded cell, I thought one afternoon while ducking into a store to hide out.

But last week I attended part of Spokane County Sheriff John Goldman’s community assessment forum for the local criminal justice system.

A sobering conclusion emerged.

There is no chance the people on my list of jail bait will do even a sleepover in the slammer.

Robert Cushman, a criminal justice planner from California laid out the realities of sending people to jail this way: “We all can all think up more people who need to be in jail. But in fact, no matter how many more jails we build, it will never be enough.”

The high level of public concern over crime and the public’s get-tough message to legislatures and courts has created a dangerous disparity between this ever-growing list of people the public thinks need to be locked up versus the shrinking availability of space in jails.

Some examples: The law today demands police officers responding to domestic violence calls to haul someone to jail.

We call it getting tough on domestic violence.

The law today says anyone arrested on a felony charge cannot post bond and instead must go to jail.

More getting tough.

And, the law today means that in an average week, 700 warrants are issued in Spokane for people with outstanding traffic violations.

More toughness on DWIs and speeders.

The result? Jails are filling up with crummy husbands, suspected felons and people who don’t pay their traffic tickets.

There is no room for car thieves or the guys who punch out your back door and break into the house.

And even the most violent types often spend less time in jail.

The average stay in the Spokane County Jail is only eight days.

This is reality.

So many people have been put on lists of those who should be locked up that Spokane County cannot keep up.

To its credit, the county has hired two jail traffic controllers to try to manage the system. They are like air traffic controllers, deciding who lands in jail and who keeps circling outside.

After one year on the job, Dan Veloski sees the reality of what is going on. “It doesn’t matter how much money you put into jails or how much staff you add to jails, you are always going to need more,” said this population control officer. “This weekend I expect to have 590 people in the county jail. The actual capacity of the jail is only 519. We will have people sleeping on mattresses laid out on desks or the floor in cells. And even that won’t be enough.”

Over at juvenile detention, Judi Pratt faces the same stark reality.

“Our priority is to detain those kids who are a risk to people,” she said. “That means the offenders who are a risk to property don’t get in. For the kids that come to me for car theft, shoplifting or some burglaries, the best I can do is give them a date to report four to eight weeks in the future. Unfortunately, they often come back only to find that we are filled and they have to make another reservation.”

To put it in the simplest terms, jails can’t keep up with either crime or the public’s desire to punish or detain the criminal elements.

This isn’t a jail problem. This is a community problem.

Spokane and communities everywhere have to wise up and quit asking legislators and courts to pass unfunded and unenforceable laws ordering people to jail.

Instead, we need to decide which few people need jail and decide what the best alternatives are for the thousands of others who commit crimes but cannot fit into a cell.

There are other options: diversion of young people into community service; day-care centers for dropouts who commit crimes during business hours; electronic monitoring.

And standing there above all the rest is the need to reduce the risk factors that lead to crime in a community in the first place.

Rather than push for more bricks and mortar for jails, we should join efforts to cut down on availability of drugs and firearms.

The answer to keeping people out of jail is keeping kids in school, rewarding good behavior, addressing problems early, not late in the lives of children.

But we cannot put everybody in jail.

Everyone who works around jails knows it.

They want us to know it, too.