MONROE — Prisoners and corrections officers alike may find themselves locked out of the Monroe Correctional Complex’s oldest building, a sprawling 99-year-old structure that the state could close.
Four consultants visited the prison Tuesday as part of a statewide effort to slim the system by 1,580 prison beds. If that goal is met in Monroe, about 100 to 125 jobs would be cut, Prison Superintendent Scott Frakes said.
That’s 10 percent of its work force at the prison, one of the largest employers in Monroe. Additionally, prisoners may be moved to facilities far from their families, complicating visits.
“It would be the low point in my career to have to go through that process,” said Frakes, a 27-year veteran of the department.
Frakes has worked before with the consultants from Christopher Murray and Associates, however. He felt positive after the visit from the Olympia firm.
“I’m just a realist,” Frakes said. “I believe that the right decisions are going to be made.”
Right or wrong, decisions will be made by Nov. 1, the deadline for the consultants to deliver their report to the Legislature.
After that, elected officials will decide whether to act, potentially saving millions of dollars as they bring the system in line with a shrinking prison population.
So far, the consultants have visited three prisons. Monroe was their latest stop. There, they focused on the medium-security Washington State Reformatory, one of five units that make up the 365-acre complex.
The reformatory has some red flags that made it an obvious choice for review. Built in 1910, it houses 740 prison beds. The building has a tiered cell block that requires higher levels of staffing, unlike newer prisons, which use a pod-like layout that is easier to monitor.
The consultants will weigh factors in addition to design and age. For example, the Legislature has asked them to factor in the local economic impact of closing each facility.
Along with Monroe, the consultants have visited the state penitentiary in Walla Walla, built in 1886, and McNeil Island, an Alcatraz-esque prison southwest of Tacoma. Additional sites will be visited in the coming weeks, including a Tuesday review of the Pine Lodge Corrections Center for Women in Medical Lake.
McNeil Island has several factors working against it. Built in 1875, it has 1,300 beds, near the target amount of 1,580. The prison is reached by ferry. Senate Democrats have pushed for its closure.
However, Monroe is not out of the woods.
The prison is comparatively expensive to operate. According to the state Office of Financial Management, it costs $122.34 per day to house an offender there, compared with $107.65 at McNeil Island, even accounting for that ferry ride.
The consultants will dig into those figures. For instance, the reformatory houses a dialysis unit used by the entire prison system. It has its own hospital, something McNeil Island lacks. It also operates a special unit for some of the state’s most unruly offenders.
“As you begin to tease out some of those issues and come up with a more accurate assessment of what it costs to house an offender, I expect that number will look different,” Frakes said.
The reformatory itself is not in need of serious repairs. The neoclassical building, which looks like it was airlifted out of Washington, D.C., received an upgrade to its security system this summer. Its roof is expected to last another 30 years, according to Frakes.
The local community also adds to the worth of the reformatory. Hundreds of volunteers work with the institution.
“It would be disastrous to cut anything here in Monroe, because you have so many volunteer services that support the prison on the outside,” said state Rep. Kirk Pearson, R-Monroe, a member of the state Sentencing Guidelines Commission.
Pearson will play a role in deciding the fate of the consultants’ recommendations, which in part were triggered by budget concerns.
The Legislature made $4 billion in cuts in 2009 to its two-year budget, according to the Office of Financial Management. Lawmakers trimmed $120 million from the prison system’s $1.78 billion budget.
The plan to eliminate prison beds is being combined with a move to shrink the juvenile and residential rehabilitation programs. The Legislature expects those changes to save $12 million.
Cutting prison beds would also reflect the reality of the state’s shrinking offender population.
The Washington State Caseload Forecast Council, an independent state agency, estimates the prison population will lose more than 1,000 offenders in the next two years, emptying cells.
The council attributes the downturn in offenders to new programs and legislation. For example, the corrections system is expanding residential treatment for drug offenders, keeping more out of prison. It’s also implementing a new voucher program that will help offenders find housing so they can leave prison faster.
Programs like that may reduce the prisoner population. Whether that means changes in Monroe remains to be seen.
Closing the reformatory would be more challenging than simply moving prisoners. The building is home to the prison’s biggest kitchen, for instance. Without that, prison officials could have to change the way inmates are fed.
For now, the staff is in a holding pattern, waiting on the consultants’ report and remaining cautiously optimistic.
“We’ll be celebrating, I’m hoping, our 100th anniversary next spring,” Frakes said. “Our plan is to celebrate.”
Andy Rathbun: 425-339-3455, arathbun@heraldnet.com.
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