EVERETT — The Snohomish County Jail might soon resume locking up as many as 100 Seattle inmates each day under a proposed contract that Everett Mayor Ray Stephanson contends is irresponsible “and unfair to this community.”
The mayor on Tuesday wrote the County Council, urging it to send back for revision an agreement negotiated by the Snohomish County Sheriff’s Office with the city of Seattle. The mayor wants more written assurance that people sent by Seattle to serve their time here won’t wind up wandering Everett streets upon release.
Sheriff Ty Trenary said the proposed contract already provides multiple ways to return inmates to Seattle and that Everett’s worries are unfounded.
“We are really concerned there is a lot of fear for no reason,” the sheriff said.
Trenary has led reforms to make the jail safer to operate, including reducing its use as a place to warehouse people living with mental illness and addiction who are arrested for nonviolent offenses, including petty thefts and illegal camping.
The sheriff insists he’s not about to now contract for trouble — inside or outside the lockup.
“I will absolutely cancel this contract with Seattle if we see an influx of homeless people” downtown linked to the change, Trenary said.
Seattle officials approved the contract this week. The County Council is scheduled to weigh in Monday. The agreement is expected to bring in about $3 million a year to help pay for the county’s day-to-day expenses.
The county for years had jail contracts with the state Department of Corrections and nearly a score of cities and counties around the Puget Sound region.
Then a string of in-custody deaths, many under Trenary’s predecessor, led him to closely scrutinize how the lockup was being used.
Built to house up to 1,200 inmates, the jail routinely contained 1,300 people, many of them sleeping on portable plastic beds.
In keeping with recommendations from federal corrections experts, Trenary took steps to dial back the jail population and improve inmate screening. He imposed booking restrictions to make it tougher to jail people arrested for nonviolent misdemeanors and for those whose health issues can’t be safely addressed behind bars.
The jail’s average daily population is now down to about 750 inmates. That reduction is seen everywhere in the lockup, except for units equipped to care for inmates living with mental illness and those detoxing from substance abuse, particularly heroin.
The County Council earlier this year encouraged Trenary to examine whether enough progress had been made to again allow for contracting. The review suggested the jail might operate best with an average daily population of about 900, Trenary said.
Seattle always had been a good partner, and was interested in again sending some of its inmates to Everett, sheriff’s Bureau Chief Tony Aston said.
The contract specifies that Seattle may only send inmates to the Snohomish County Jail who are serving sentences for misdemeanor convictions. The county can reject any inmate it deems to have a medical or psychiatric condition that would present a safety risk or create an “extraordinary care burden.” Examples include people detoxing from drugs or alcohol, insulin-dependent diabetics, inmates who use wheelchairs and those requiring specialized mental health housing.
Inmates from Seattle who would meet the contract criteria historically have been people who don’t create trouble, want to serve their time and often have families waiting for them upon release, Aston said.
“This is not an illegal camper sleeping on a sidewalk,” Aston said.
Stephanson, however, wrote in a letter to the County Council on Tuesday that there is a concern that “many inmates are released from the jail into homelessness.”
The city’s Streets Initiatives Task Force unanimously agreed that it should be a top priority to return inmates to the communities where they lived before being jailed. Everett, like many cities around the county, is struggling with what appears to be a growing homeless population. Stephanson is concerned that Seattle’s inmates will add to the street population here.
He is urging the County Council to change language in the proposed contract to assure that Seattle’s inmates are not released onto Everett streets.
The contract already specifies that the jail will transport up to 10 Seattle inmates back to King County three to five times a week. Inmates also will be moved down to Seattle on the regular transportation cooperative already in place.
The contract also calls for Seattle to provide its inmates with bus vouchers to return home.
Everett’s proposal goes further. It wants the two agencies to “make every effort” to return Seattle’s inmates to King County. It suggests that inmates could sign a waiver to stay in custody until transportation can be arranged.
“We ask that you reject the contract as written and approve it only with strong assurances that every possible measure will be taken to ensure Seattle’s inmates” are returned to King County, Stephanson wrote.
“To do otherwise would be irresponsible, and unfair to this community,” he added.
Sheriff’s spokeswoman Shari Ireton said there is no data that supports the assertion that inmates released from the jail stay in Everett if they lived elsewhere before incarceration. Trenary plans to ask the County Council to support a study to determine whether changes in jail operations are creating challenges in Everett.
“If there is impact of people being released into the community, we’ll fix it,” Ireton said.
Scott North: 425-339-3431; north@heraldnet.com. Twitter: @snorthnews.
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