TACOMA – The head of the state prison system, Harold Clarke, has a proposal to control costs: don’t send convicts back to prison for violating parole.
Clarke says parole violators could be supervised through “violator centers” at Department of Corrections offices.
On any day, about 1,200 convicts are back behind bars for violating parole. A common violation is failing a drug or alcohol test.
Many of those inmates go to county jail cells that the state rents. Others go back to prison where it costs more than $27,000 a year to house an inmate. Washington has a total of about 18,000 prison inmates.
Clarke says it would be cheaper to put parole violators into drug or alcohol treatment programs.
That change is opposed by the director of the Washington Association of Prosecuting Attorneys, Tom McBride. He says violators deserve to serve more time and the state needs to build more prisons.
Port Orchard: Man gets 18 years for killing
A man has been sentenced to 18 years and four months in prison for the fatal shooting of a Bremerton-area man after they got into a fistfight in a strip mall parking lot.
The sentence ordered Monday by Kitsap County Superior Court Judge Leonard Costello for Zachary James Santos, 20, of Everett, was a year and eight months more than both sides recommended.
Santos pleaded guilty earlier to second-degree murder in the shooting of John Falani Taueli, 23, who was hit by three shots in the stomach Aug. 5 after he and Santos fought in the Redwood Plaza parking lot outside Bremerton.
Santos was arrested Sept. 11 at his apartment in Everett, where he moved after the shooting.
Olympia: Razor clam dig this weekend
A new razor-clam dig has been approved for Washington’s ocean beaches this weekend.
Digging will be allowed on Saturday and Sunday, from noon to midnight, at Long Beach, Twin Harbors, Mocrocks and Kalaloch beaches. Twin Harbors will also be open for digging from noon to midnight on Monday.
Copalis Beach will not be open this time because of a low number of clams.
Harvesters are allowed to take no more than 15 razor clams and must keep the first 15 they dig, regardless of size or condition. A license is required for anyone age 15 or older.
Oregon: After 2 months, cat returns to Wyoming
Was it a case of cat scratch fever? Or was Tinker, a 14-year-old brown tabby with one eye, just getting back in touch with her wildcat ancestors?
Whatever the reason, after a sojourn in Oregon, Tinker is headed back to her Riverton, Wyo., home.
In late October, a volunteer for the Salem Friends of Felines shelter found Tinker roaming the state fairgrounds.
On Monday, Tinker was reunited with her owners, Carole and Dave Rowlette, who gladly made the two-day drive to pick up their cat.
The couple said Tinker wound up more than 1,100 miles from home after the Rowlettes attended a motor-home rally at the fairgrounds in September.
Dave Rowlette said the cat slipped out when the door was left open and was “gone in a flash.”
Associated Press
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