We Can't Build Our Way Out Of Overcrowding

A message from the Project Manager

The Sheriff’s Detention Services Project is moving full steam ahead by not only designing bricks and mortar but restructuring the way that we are handling offenders. From the incipient phase our goal has been to approach this project from two separate but interconnecting correction philosophies, designing and building a jail that would provide the citizens of Spokane with a 35 year plan for the incarceration of offenders and taking a critical look the criminal justice system as a whole. Our timeline is aggressive because the lease will end on Geiger (our second facility- housing 500 inmates) in 2013, which falls in line with the 5 year building process of a new facility.

With the realization that we can not build our way out of our jail overcrowding woes, nor can we blindly say that our criminal justice system is operating in the most efficient manner possible. Instead, we must stand back and analyze the way we handle offenders from the time they are arrested to the time when they reenter the community. The development of a Community Correction Center fosters a learning environment to arm the offenders with the necessary skills to increase the odds of success. More attention must be paid to the reentry of offenders into our community if want to make impact recidivism and not allowing the offender to go from cell to street.  A Justice Council paneled by key law enforcement, judicial staff, and elected officials have tasked themselves with not only exploring this issue but looking at each phase of the adjudication process from patrol car to reentry.