Counties find crime pays

Overcrowding in Idaho’s prison system is pushing some local jails over capacity, but counties with spare cells are cashing in.

“Another person’s misery is our gold,” Shoshone County Sheriff Chuck Reynalds said.

Kootenai County shipped 10 state inmates to Shoshone last week after the population in the 325-bed jail swelled to nearly 400.

Even with the transfer, the county is holding more than 50 prisoners that the state doesn’t have room for.

For jails that do have space, housing state prisoners and inmates from other counties can be a moneymaker, Reynalds said.

Benewah County Sheriff Robert Kirts has gone to county commissioners with the idea that a new jail with extra beds could pay for itself and possibly turn a profit.

There’s certainly no shortage of inmates.

The state has more than 620 prison inmates in county jails throughout Idaho. Another 300 are being held at a private prison in Minnesota. Housing inmates out of state costs about $500,000 a month.

Reynalds said Shoshone County is happy to accept the overflow and even drive to Kootenai County to pick up the inmates. The most recent transfer brought the number of state prisoners in the Shoshone County facility to 37 – a larger percentage of the county jail population than locally sentenced criminals.

For each state prisoner housed in Shoshone, the county receives $40 a day plus reimbursement for medical expenses.

“It’s been our life bread,” Reynalds said. “The valley over here has been struggling and going through tough times. It’s been a godsend for us.”

The money goes into the county’s general fund, but Reynalds said his department certainly benefits.

Although there is room to shuffle more inmates to Shoshone County now, Kootenai County Commissioner Gus Johnson said he believes jails in all of five North Idaho counties eventually will be filled to capacity with their own inmates.

The county has begun exploring other means of dealing with crowding at the Kootenai County Jail. In November, voters rejected a proposal to fund a $50 million expansion using a local option sales tax.

Johnson said the county plans to ask voters again to fund a jail expansion. In the meantime, the county teamed with the Coeur d’Alene Tribe in hopes that a facility can be built on the reservation.

“They have the ability to get the dollars that we don’t,” Johnson said.

Tribal spokesman Quanah Spencer said the tribe is seeking a federal appropriation to build a new police station and a 200-bed jail on the reservation. The facility could house local and state prisoners, Spencer said.

Only sentenced inmates would be held at the proposed jail, so the tribe wouldn’t have to transport inmates to and from court appearances, he said.