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Regional Jail Plan Blooms

November 24th, 2008
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The coalition of counties wanting to build a new regional jail in Central Washington has grown to seven and wants money for a detailed study of the idea.

Franklin County has now joined Douglas, Chelan, Okanogan, Grant, Kittitas and Adams in talking about jointly building a facility to house inmates.  Officials from the counties met last Thursday in Yakima during the Washington State Association of Counties meeting. Officials from several Western Washington counties, including Whatcom, Skagit and Snohomish, also attended the meeting and expressed interest in building regional jails in their own areas, said Douglas County Commissioner Ken Stanton.

Under current state law, jails can only be owned and operated by a city or county. However, the coalition of Eastern Washington counties will present a bill in the upcoming legislative session to change the law and allow private entities to run jails, Stanton said. He said the seven counties are interested in paying for construction of the jail and then paying a private operator to run it. The state granted a similar law change several years ago to allow Martin Hall, a juvenile detention facility near Spokane in which Douglas County youth are housed, to be built by nine counties and run by a private entity. RiverCom, the 911 emergency call center in Wenatchee, is also operated by a private entity and funded by multiple government agencies. Sen. Linda Evans Parlette, R-Wenatchee, has agreed to sponsor the bill in the Senate, and Rep. Mike Armstrong, R-Wenatchee, will lead the effort in the House, Stanton said.

Douglas County raised the idea of building the regional jail earlier this year after determining that it would be too costly to build one on their own. The commissioners have said they don’t believe the 380-bed jail in Wenatchee will be big enough for Chelan and Douglas counties and all the cities in those counties in the future, and they don’t want to invest in expanding the aging facility.  The Association of Counties has asked for $250,000 from Gov. Chris Gregoire’s capital budget to do a feasibility study on building the regional jail, Stanton said. “The first major step is to see if it’s viable,” he said. “We need to find out how much it will cost overall and how much it will cost each of the counties.”   The study will not look at a possible location for the facility. That decision would be made after the study is done, Stanton said.

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Food Costs Force Changes In Prison Diets

May 5th, 2008
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As global food prices soar, corrections facilities across the country and in Wisconsin are trimming some of the extras from their menus and devising other creative ways to save cash.

If Wisconsin prisoners seem a little sluggish and perhaps a bit irritable these days, it could be because they haven’t had their coffee. Behind bars in Clark County, Wash., jelly has vanished from peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Bread is becoming luxury of sorts for inmates in Wisconsin. And those locked in the Milwaukee County jail could soon see dessert disappear. Milwaukee County Sheriff David A. Clarke Jr … said he’ll also look at swapping hot meals for cold and making other cuts when the department’s contract with food service giant Aramark expires in the fall. “As long as the taxpayers have to struggle with rising food costs and eat more Hamburger Helper, as long as they have to adjust their living and eating habits, why should they have to pay increased costs for people who have disregarded society’s rules?”

…  Food costs for the Wisconsin Department of Corrections have jumped about 12% to $1.11 per meal so far in 2008, said Earl Fischer, administrator for the department’s division of management services. And although for the first time in three years the state boosted the budget in anticipation of cost increases, Fischer said food service workers have still had to make adjustments to the menu to meet the budget. “It’s a challenge,” Fischer said. “We’re doing some creative things.” For one, the department is mixing soy into some of its meat mixtures. In addition, it is cutting back on chicken and turkey and rationing bread, Fischer said. Inmates are still receiving calorically and nutritionally adequate meals with the proper vitamins and proteins, Fischer said.

The department has also expanded its gardening program, increasing the sizes and numbers of gardens throughout the system. So far the department has cut coffee from about half its facilities and is gradually weaning inmates at the remaining sites. “There’s no health value in coffee,” he said.

Not everyone is willing to go that far.

Ricky Clark, president of the Association of Correctional Food Service Affiliates, said he wouldn’t dare stop brewing coffee for inmates in the Virginia Department of Corrections facilities. “It’s the highlight of their day,” Clark said. “We refused to do that. They automatically become irritable and harder to control.” Clark said they’ve taken other measures in Virginia, such as less frequent ordering and more freezing of food. They’ve already been watering down milk into a “milk product,” so there’s no place to cut there. “It’s about as low as we can go,” he said …

In Clark Co., Wash., where jailers cut the jelly from the peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, food services manager Clark Campbell said he’s looked for other ways besides food to save money, such as ditching disposable cups. “You’re in a corner. I’ve still got people to feed and a nutritional line to hold,” Campbell said. “Everybody is just trying to ride this.”

Additional details are in the article at Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

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