Prisoner Population Keeps Rising

The number of inmates booked into the Kootenai County Jail continued to climb last year, topping 6,000.

A quarter of the 6,061 people booked into jail were accused of felonies, according to Sheriff’s Department statistics released Friday.

The average 1998 daily jail population was 166 inmates, 39 more than capacity.

The 11-year-old jail set a single-day high when it housed 217 inmates on Oct. 24.

Inmates, 90 percent of whom were men, were jailed an average of 23 days.

While in jail, inmate workers cleaned 607,050 pounds of jail laundry and 43,934 pounds of laundry for the Juvenile Detention Center.

They also spent 14,632 hours working on the jail’s food service and 6,824 hours doing janitorial work at the jail.