A new jail will not make you safer. But it will make you poorer. It will cost every resident of the county nearly $3,000 over the course of the project. I don't know about you, but I can't afford an increase in my taxes unless it's absolutely essential.
What would make a new jail absolutely essential? Would it be an overflow of dangerous violent offenders, so many we would be renting beds in other jails because we had no room for them in our existing jail? Even if this was the case, and it is NOT, we could still explore more cost-effective options, like remodelling existing buildings. If the state can do that, why can't the county?
The joint state/federal work release in downtown Spokane occupies an older building, a remodelled hotel. So does the women's work release on the lower South Hill, where incidentally female county inmates are also housed. That facility started as two victorian houses.
There are lots of vacant buildings all over town. Remodelling one of them would eliminate the need to continuously transport inmates into and out of town from the west plains for court appearances. Promoters of the new jail say we are already doing that. And how much is that costing? How much could we save if we stopped doing that? If it is true that we will likely lose the Geiger sight in 2013, why not simply move into an existing building or buildings in town?
The plan being presented includes a community corrections jail facility, which is supposed to support re-entry into the community. Really? Then why not decentralize it into the neighborhoods? Use some of the empty buildings standing vacant all over town, and convert them into halfway houses. A centralized facility seems like more of a barrier to re-entry than a support.
And a wing just for mentally-ill inmates? Why not address the problem of having to use jails and prisons to deal with mental illness. These people should be re-directed away from custody settings and into foster care settings. Casting the management of mental illness as the role of the jail system is more than one step backward. It's medieval.
If current laws need to change to allow for retracking of mentally ill offenders into more appropriate settings, then let's get our legislators involved in writing that legislation. We all know those people do not belong in jail. More often than not, if they had medication monitoring they wouldn't be involved with the criminal justice system to begin with.
The current dog and pony show orchestrated by Hatley & Co. misrepresents the project, by confusing what is actually budgeted, i.e. the bricks and mortar, with a noble wish list of programming that isn't budgeted for. Not one penny is slated for all those much-needed interventions. Where is that money going to come from?
Finding yet more money for an ambitious slate of education, employment and treatment programs for the new jail is as likely to happen in this decade as full employment or the restoration of Kaiser pensions. It isn't going to happen. Presenting the new jail project as if all that programming is included is dishonest.
Jail population has declined in recent years, as has violent crime. Are these numbers beginning to rise in response to high unemployment? That is what jail manager Anderton says. And if that is true, wouldn't our half a billion dollars be better spent attracting jobs to our community? That would at least be dealing with the root problem.
Studies show that the best investment we can make in corrections is education. Getting a GED has proven to cut re-offending in half. Why not invest in that? You don't need to build a new jail to do it.
It is well known in the corrections industry that incarceration is the most expensive way to protect the community. And it only works as long as the offender is in custody. It's a temporary solution at best. What we need is a way for offenders to become productive members of the community. That revolving door isn't the way to get there.
$120.00 a day for a temporary interruption in a life of crime is a waste of money. We should ONLY spend it when we have no other choice, i.e. when a person is an immediate threat to themself or someone else.
We can't afford to use incarceration as punishment. Right now, the U.S. incarcerates more of its citizens than any other country. If you must use incarceration, then short-term incarceration is far more effective both as punishment and as a deterrent than lengthier incarceration.
As a society, we already waste enormous amounts of money warehousing people who ought to be working to support themselves and their families. Work-releases operated out of halfway houses could be established locally at far less cost than this elaborate monument to an outmoded and ineffective correctional model.
Alternatives to incarceration cost a fraction, typically in the range of $15.00 per day per offender. And they are far more effective at turning offenders into productive citizens. Incarceration has a negative effect. Jails and prisons are known as schools for crime for good reasons.
It's clear to me this jail is going to make a big profit for some people, mainly bankers and contractors and some investors who know how to profit from your tax money. Yes, construction jobs would be wonderful to have. But there are all sorts of ways to create those jobs. Building something we don't need that is not a more effective model makes no sense at all. Unless the only thing you care about is making a profit, and you happen to be one of those people who stands to profit from this boondoggle.
I'm not buying.
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