County Seeks Jail Options Officials Hope New Proposals Will Ease Overcrowding

They’re crammed two or three at a time in small rooms, sleeping on floors and next to toilets.

Their showers often are cold, and tempers flare easily under the pressure of close quarters.

A glut of inmates at the Kootenai County Jail is overwhelming prisoners and jailers alike.

“It’s like packing a whole bunch of people into a sardine can,” said inmate Jim Laughnan. “It makes it nerve-racking for everyone.”

In an effort to cut down on crowding, officials are looking at two new programs designed to rein in the skyrocketing population.

Pretrial release: A kind of get-out-of-jail-free test, it would let minor offenders out of jail more quickly.

A stay at the county fairgrounds: Criminals who have been handed very short sentences would show up on designated weekends to serve their time in a fairgrounds building rather than in the jail.

Laughnan, 39, has spent the last 13 months in the jail for attempted robbery. Much of that time, he has been living with someone else in a cell designed for only one person.

“It’s like living in your bathroom at home, and someone is sleeping on the floor next to the toilet and you are on a bunk above the bathtub,” he said.

The Kootenai County Jail is certified to hold 123 inmates. But it regularly houses more than 180 inmates at a time, and earlier this month, it reached 212, said Kootenai County sheriff’s Capt. Travis Chaney.

“There is a lot of grief for the guys in here,” Laughnan said.

Last month, inmate Timothy P. Mahon filed a handwritten lawsuit claiming the crowding is “cruel and unusual punishment.” He wants up to $100 for each day he has spent behind bars.

Last October, inmate Richard J. Updegraff filed a similar motion asking for more than $700 for each day behind bars. He said the conditions were unsanitary and degrading.

“The main concern is hygiene,” Laughnan said. “Who wants to sleep near a toilet with your face within inches of a toilet facility?”

Despite his frustration, Laughnan complimented the jail staff. “I think they are doing the best they can under the circumstances.”

So far the jail staff has dealt with the crowding by adding extra bunks and giving inmates mattresses to sleep on the floor. They have turned one recreation room into a holding area and are considering turning the main recreation area into a bunking area as well, Chaney said.

“It impacts our ability to provide basic services such as laundry, food service and medical care,” Chaney said.

Since September, a task force has been looking into ways to reduce crowding. On Monday retired Judge Watt Prather presented their best option to the Kootenai County Commissioners - the pretrial release.

Currently, when people are arrested on a Friday afternoon or during the weekend they must stay in jail until Monday when they go before the magistrate judge.

The magistrate then decides whether or not to let the people out of jail without a bond or on their “own recognizance.”

The pretrial release is a kind of questionnaire designed to identify which inmates are likely to be released by the judge on their personal recognizance. Those who fit the criteria, would be released shortly after being booked into the jail, rather than having to wait through the entire weekend.

“What they’re trying to do is avoid the weekend and holiday population stack-ups,” Prather said Tuesday. Local residents who have committed non-violent misdemeanor crimes, such as driving offenses and petty thefts, would be the most likely to qualify for the early release, Prather said.

Those arrested for alcohol and drugs, violent crimes and sex offenses would not be eligible.

Prather predicts the program could reduce the weekend jail population by 10 to 20 percent. The program is modeled after one in Canyon County that costs between $65,000 and $70,000 a year to run.

Another proposed program being commended by both jail and judicial officials is incarceration at the Kootenai County Fairgrounds.

On a typical weekend, between 10 and 20 people turn themselves in to the jail to serve one- or two-day sentences for minor crimes.

Chaney and Judge James Judd would like to see them spend that time instead in a building at the fairgrounds on a designated weekend.

That would free up the jail to hold more serious offenders and may actually be more punishment.

“People would often rather be in a jail facility with a television rather than sitting on a cot with nothing else to do,” Judd said.

Both programs are still in the planning stage.

And although there had been talk of building a new minimum security jail building this year, county administrator Tom Taggart said that no new facility is likely to be started until at least next spring.

Prather cautioned that the suggested programs will not solve the jail’s problems forever.

“It is simply something that will give some temporary partial relief,” he said.

Laughnan agreed. “It’s like putting a Band-Aid on a major cut.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Graphic: Kootenai County’s prison population