Thurston County is finding short-term solutions for its overcrowded jail that Sheriff Derek Sanders says is one step away from a lawsuit.
The first step is a work group between stakeholders and the Board of Thurston County Commissioners to search for viable solutions, primarily in the short term, but also in the long term. At a recent meeting, the board unanimously approved creating the work group, composed of Commissioners Tye Menser and Rachel Grant, as well as stakeholders.
Sanders told the county commissioners during their Tuesday, Feb. 4, agenda-setting meeting that the jail does not have enough space for those with mental illnesses, sex offenders or highly violent offenders. According to Thurston County Courts, the jail sees an average daily population of approximately 425 inmates.
“Generally speaking, no one really likes the thought of building more jails or building more prisons, but I do think that that is still outweighed by the fact that no one likes to think of people being crammed inhumanely into a jail or a prison,” Sanders said. “Those two topics are clashing pretty hard right now. We’ve had a number of disability groups come through. It just feels like we’re one step away from being sued on this issue.”
Sanders said the jail was intended to have a second half built, but the county doesn’t have $30 to $50 million lying around to build it “like it was always intended.” He added that the jail was built in an open-dorm setting and that it has a “serious lack of cell space.”
“We are at max capacity to the point where we told patrol deputies, ‘If you don’t have to take anyone to jail over the weekend, please don’t,’ which is not a good premise to operate under,” Sanders said.
Sanders said one of the biggest issues with the jail’s crisis is that the sizable mentally ill population cannot be housed together.
“A large section of that cell space is being taken up by mentally ill people. We have an entire quadrant of our jail inside the max unit that has space for two beds in a cell that is only housing one person,” he said.
Sanders said that the Charlie unit, a quadrant of double-tiered single cells, houses between 29 and 31 inmates in each of the four units. He said there have been many fights in one of the 60-inmate dorms, calling it the “Wild West” and adding that the county is paying overtime indefinitely to have a second corrections deputy monitoring it.
Sanders wants to look into what it would cost to build a flex unit, which would accommodate its growing needs, as well as to staff that unit. Additionally, inmates are living in a transfer unit with bunk beds bolted to the floor in an area that was “never intended to be lived in,” Sanders said.
Commissioner Grant said she likes the idea of assembling a work group to focus on finding a short-term solution and analyzing capacity issues, caseload trends and the integration of behavioral health. Grant volunteered to join the jail space crisis work group as she worked with the King County Jail on space issues in her previous career.
“I also would really like to recommend that we consider thinking about working with a consultant or putting out a request for proposal for a consultant to have them come and look at jail space, courtroom space and behavioral health wrap-around services for that long-term solution,” she said.
Menser said the jail space issue has been a concern since 2016 and was brought up again in 2019 with the design of a potential flex unit before the COVID-19 pandemic shut down conversations.
“Some of the things that I wasn’t willing to consider in 2019 I’m more willing to consider now just because it’s five years later and the problem hasn't been solved. I kind of want to go back to where we were in 2019 and an overview of all the different options to see what could fit the best,” Menser said.
County Manager Leonard Hernandez said a study session will be organized to get commissioners up to speed on the history of the issue before putting together the framework of the work group.
