Spokane7
68°
May 20, 2011 in City
Knezovich makes points in debate over new jail
Call it the Dueling PowerPoints.
Spokane’s downtown Rotary 21 club got the opening salvo April 29 when Robert Boruchowitz, a Seattle University law professor, made the case for diversion programs instead of another county jail.
Sheriff Ozzie Knezovich fired back Thursday with a presentation that lifted one of Boruchowitz’s PowerPoint slides and skewered it with a flourish.
Knezovich’s version of the slide added a half-dozen statistical corrections.
The errors would have been apparent to anyone who looked closely at Boruchowitz’s PowerPoint on behalf of the No New Jail coalition. The slide show included a pie chart, prepared by Spokane County consultant David Bennett, that belied Boruchowitz’s summary of the data.
“I made a mistake,” Boruchowitz said Thursday in a telephone interview. “I didn’t become a mathematician, and there’s probably a good reason for that.”
Knezovich also disputed Boruchowitz’s assertion that “about 48 people a year” are jailed for marijuana possession, at an annual cost of $228,125.
The sheriff said 117 people have been arrested so far this year on marijuana charges, but the marijuana counts were accompanied by other charges in all but 18 cases. He said 17 of those were released within 24 hours and one was jailed for 48 hours – for a marijuana-only cost of $2,340.
“We just don’t arrest people for misdemeanor levels of marijuana and hold them in jail for long periods of time,” Knezovich said.
Boruchowitz’s acknowledged errors cut both ways.
He said only 27 percent of jail inmates awaiting trial in 2010 were charged with crimes against persons, but 48 percent actually were charged with violence.
Score one for Knezovich.
On the other hand, Boruchowitz stated incorrectly that 25 percent were charged with property, drug, traffic or “public order” offenses (trespass, drunken nuisances, public urination and prostitution).
The correct total was 40 percent, which better supports Boruchowitz’s point.
“It looks like even more people are in the categories that I suggest would benefit from diversions,” he said. “And I think the basic principles that I talked about and that I otherwise have in the PowerPoint remain accurate.”
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Jon on May 20 at 7:42 a.m.
Fact is Spokane County needs a new and larger jail.
There is a saying….20 percent of the criminals commit 80 percent of the crime…and I believe that.
mdoodle on May 20 at 8:24 a.m.
Spokane’s need for a new or expanded jail is obvious.
A very good indication to me is when we have offenders being sent on their way with a misdemeanor infraction instead of being booked into SCJ because the jail is full or near full, such as when DUI offenders are essentially written a ticket and sent on their way. “Over the limit, under arrest” — but only if the jail has room.
When, due to overcrowding, the Spokane city prosecutor decides not to prosecute criminal charges, such as driving with license suspended, and refiles such cases as traffic infractions to save court and jail time (one cannot be jailed for a non-criminal traffic infraction), this tells me we are beyond the point of needing more cells… Last time I checked it is the Prosecutor’s fiduciary duty to prosecute criminal offenders, but without cells for the offenders to go to serve their sentence it becomes difficult.
I can’t believe this is even a topic of discussion.
horse_feathers on May 20 at 10:31 a.m.
Fact is when they built the last new jail in the 80’s they filled it within a short period of time. “If you build it they will come” or rather they will be “booked”.
i recently heard a radio advertisement for building a new ail in which Sheriff K asks, does some one have to die before we realize a new jail is needed? Seems to me that the only people I have read about dying over the past several years are the inmates and a couple of them at the hands of jailers.
Remember the “donkey kick”. I will be voting, no new jail.
misjustice on May 20 at 11:45 a.m.
I’ll be voting NO; only because HELL NO isn’t an option on the ballot.
mdoodle on May 20 at 11:49 a.m.
horse_feathers,
While I can appreciate your opinion, the fact is, building a new jail or expanding the current one will not compel law abiding citizens to perform criminal activities. If people were not committing crimes, then they would not be booked into jail.
greyhound2 on May 20 at 9:30 p.m.
It costs local property owners about $30,000 per year to warehouse one inmate in jail. The United States currently has the highest per capital prison population in the world, and also of all time. The per capital numbers in the United States exceed even those of Joseph Stalin in communist Russia during the 1950’s, and we called them the “evil empire”. While some do belong in jail, the population numbers suggest that America is too “jail happy”, and taxpayers are paying a huge price for it. Sentencing guidelines are clearly out of whack and common sense is needed.