EVERETT — When a woman died last week at the Snohomish County Jail there were questions.
The first: Why did 62-year-old Marilyn E. Mowan suddenly collapse in an observation cell in the medical unit?
A close second: What was she doing there in the first place?
The woman had been living in Compass Health mental health housing in Everett. She was well-known to Everett police. They booked her into jail after she allegedly slapped a nurse at a triage center in Everett, a place set up to steer people in mental health crises away from the criminal justice system. Police recommended the woman be charged with third-degree assault, a felony.
Sheriff Ty Trenary on Wednesday said he has questions for the police department and jail staff.
The woman had been in a facility established to help people manage mental problems. She wound up confined in a jail cell with limited access to resources and where she posed a challenge for corrections officers.
“How does that make any sense?” Trenary asked.
At least 12 people have died in the county jail since 2010. The woman’s death followed a young man’s suicide the week before. Some of those deaths have involved serious health problems from longtime drug and alcohol abuse, but, in legal settlements, some have been deemed preventable.
In spite of the two recent deaths, Trenary said he believes progress is being made to make the jail safer, including improvements to health care and increased screening of inmates at booking.
“I’m convinced we’re on the right path,” Trenary said. “It’s just a long, bumpy path.”
Deaths at the jail began attracting scrutiny after a trio of high-profile incidents led to legal claims and allegations of inadequate medical care and negligence. A young woman succumbed to an untreated lung infection. A young man collapsed from an apparent allergic reaction to food. A mentally ill man died in a struggle with corrections officers after being shocked, twice, with a stun gun.
There isn’t good data available to help put the jail deaths into context. Few jail administrators are eager to share that information.
“Our agency has been unable to find official jail death statistics for other jails in Washington state,” sheriff’s spokeswoman Shari Ireton said Friday. “As far as I know, the state does not track this information either, so we have no way to benchmark our data with facilities of a similar size in our area.”
Federal law since 2000 has required jails and prisons to report in-custody deaths to the federal Bureau of Justice Statistics. Public reports lag by years, however, and those easily available only summarize state-level data.
The feds say that from 2000 to 2011, 163 deaths were reported in Washington’s county and city jails. That works out on average to fewer than 14 people a year statewide. In 2011, the death rate in Washington jails, when calculated per 100,000 inmates, was slightly less than jails in California and a tad higher than New York’s.
About 1,000 people are locked up in the Snohomish County Jail each day. By contrast, King County jails have a daily population that at times climbs to 2,275. Since 2010, a total of 10 jail deaths were reported there, three from natural causes.
The King County corrections system has been the focus of federal scrutiny. About five years ago, the U.S. attorneys office began demanding improvements in medical care, contagious disease control and suicide prevention.
Despite repeated requests, Pierce County officials did not provide jail fatality numbers. News reports list at least four deaths in that jail since 2010, all apparent suicides. Early in the reforms here, Trenary consulted with Pierce County on ideas for improving operations.
From 1996 to 2010, the Pierce County jail was the focus of a federal consent decree that came out of litigation aimed at compelling the county to comply with constitutional guarantees against cruel and unusual punishment.
In one report, a judge noted 32 deaths in the Pierce County Jail from 1998 to 2010. Of those, 16 were suicides by hanging.
Roughly 40 percent of people booked into the county jail have histories of addiction, mental illness or both, officials say.
On Tuesday, electronic body scanners, like those used in airports, were plugged in for screening inmates before booking into the Snohomish County Jail. The scanners almost immediately turned up hidden drugs.
Trenary’s staff — including two of his most experienced police leaders — are working “harder than they’ve ever worked” to improve safety and care, he said.
In the Sept. 23 death, Mowan had been at the triage center, a place that averages about 90 visits a month. The expected average stay is three to seven days.
The center is staffed around the clock with registered nurses; an exam room was recently added for health screenings.
Rikki King: 425-339-3449; rking@heraldnet.com.
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