Why aren't we coordinating our prison strategies?

Seattle Weekly writer Nina Shapiro has an interesting piece in this week’s paper about the substantial reduction in the required number of jail beds in Washington due to the change in state law emphasizing non-incarceration.

The story is a flash of ‘good news’ in a world where tough on crime is a near-religion. Who in the world could possible be in a favor of any policy other than lock ‘em up?

My seatmate on the floor of the House of Representatives is Rep. Roger Goodman, a moderate Democrat representing the 45st District. Roger is no ordinary legislator, however, in that he has done some of the most thoughtful work on criminal justice reform in our state. He speaks quietly but when he does, people listen and he has impacted our state’s public safety system substantially.

So when I read this story I can’t help but think one of the most important unsung heros is Roger Goodman.

Still, being a Seattle guy, there is a troubling lack of discussion in the article about what we’re facing front and center: The battle over the City of Seattle’s need for jail capacity for city-oriented misdemeanors due to the lack of coordination with King County. Basically here’s the deal: King County provides criminal justice services but is running out of capacity to house local city populations. Moreover, the relationship between the city and county is unclear in terms of how best to coordinate services.

For now, one of the proposed sites for the new city jail, should it occur at all over major community opposition, is Interbay, the area in our district between Queen Anne and Magnolia.

My concern is not only the city’s plans for a potential new jail, which I find a disappointing direction, but the fact that the state is struggling with “reduced” capacity needs but cities and counties are not. So–the embarrassingly obvious question–is anyone talking about coordinating infrastructure so that we don’t need to build more jails for local and county accused while reducing capacity at the state level?

I realize different levels of offenses require very, very different levels of incarceration or punishment or rehabilitation, whatever the terminology. Of course that’s the case and so many scenarios about sharing resources are naturally impossible or difficult. But still–given the massive, extraordinary and dramatic cost of prison infrastructure–why would we not conduct a comprehensive “systems analysis” of the need for offender housing to determine how best to utilize the billions in facilities we’ve already constructed?

The taxpayers deserve a thoughtful assessment and more systemic approach to our city, county and state prison needs. And that’s a heck of a lot bigger than putting a new city jail in my district.