State plans to add work-release slots

OLYMPIA – Washington’s prison system plans to double the state’s work-release program over the next decade to more than 1,200 convicts, and it will attempt to spread the expansion equitably around the state, officials said Monday.

The first $17 million expansion will provide about 120 new slots, with the location and size of the new facilities to be determined. Potential sites will be announced in a few weeks. Over time, the department wants to open 10 new facilities.

The Department of Corrections operates 15 work-release facilities in 10 counties, with waiting lists for the 678 beds. The local programs, most run by private contractors under the watch of community corrections officers, allows offenders to spend the final six months of their prison term in community-based, secure halfway houses.

Inmates work during the day and return to the work-release facility at night. Prisoners also may take part in re-entry programs, such as drug and alcohol treatment and mental health counseling.

Inmates pay $13.50 a day for their room and board, plus any restitution or legal fees they’ve been assessed. They also pay into a mandatory savings plan. The minimum-security inmates are screened by the prison and by a local committee that includes law enforcement officials, said spokesman Jeff Weathersby.

Work release is one tool the state plans to use as part of a new program mandated by the Legislature to deal with inmates’ problems, such as addiction and lack of job skills, that contribute to a cycle of crime.

Prison chief Harold Clarke said that about half of all offenders were unemployed at the time they committed their original crime and that the state must do a better job of equipping ex-offenders for the workplace.

“These are offenders who will return to communities across the state in any case, and work release is one more tool to help ensure that their transition is successful,” he said in a statement released by prison headquarters.

Clarke said the agency is forming a statewide advisory committee to help distribute new facilities equitably.

“We want this to be an open, transparent process to locate new facilities that will have the support of the communities in which they operate,” he said.

A “fair share” provision of the new prison bill says the state can’t crowd all of the new facilities into a few counties. Pierce and Spokane counties were frequently mentioned in legislative debate as having more than their share of prison facilities.

The department is required to announce by July 1 which areas are being considered for work-release and other facilities in the next three years.

The state and its advisory panel will take into account access to jobs, public transportation and treatment programs and other services the offenders will need.

The $17 million appropriation presumes 120 beds, perhaps in two 60-person facilities or in smaller sites, said David Jansen, the agency’s capital programs administrator. The state can build or lease the facilities.

The department will suggest some locations to the new advisory panel, which will include law enforcement, city and county representatives, victims’ advocates and state government, Jansen said. He declined to give specifics Monday, but he said some areas of the state are clearly underserved.