Washington has no statewide jail standards or oversight.
It’s badly needed. Washington has America’s 4th worst jail death rate. Investigative journalists have found crumbling facilities, untrained or no on-site staff, sexual abuse, suicides, poor nutrition, and absence of medical care.
The legislature eliminated Washington’s state oversight board in 1987 in response to complaints about “unfunded mandates,” which was a thing back in those days. It means counties couldn’t afford to comply with the state board’s demands, and the state provided no money to do so.
But letting them go their own way seems to have been a really bad idea, as the photo below illustrates. To remedy that, a Seattle legislator is pushing a bill to reinstate state oversight with mandatory standards.
But there’s opposition from county commissioners, sheriffs, and local jail administrators who have concerns about who’ll sit on the oversight board and how they’ll pay for jail improvements. Those aren’t good reasons to continue with severely deficient jails.
Read story here.
Photo below: The now-closed Garfield County dungeon
