EDITORIAL: County's jail problem just getting worse

Flathead County’s jail overcrowding has gone from a persistent, nagging challenge to a five-alarm crisis. Yet a solution remains elusive and unfortunately is probably still years away.

The jail’s population hit a record of 126 inmates last month, double the number of prisoners the facility was built for in 1985. Building a bigger jail seems like a simple fix, though the first obvious question is how to pay for it.

County residents wouldn’t support a $25 tax per home to pay for ongoing maintenance at the consolidated 911 emergency services dispatch center, so there isn’t a snowball’s chance in hell of passing a bond issue in this political climate for a new jail.

The county commissioners — to their credit — created a funding mechanism two years ago to begin setting aside money for a jail expansion. The additional tax money, levied over seven years, is expected to generate close to $10 million.

Problem is, by the time those seven years are up around 2021, the cost of expanding or building a new jail will have increased exponentially. It took three tries before Gallatin County voters approved a $32 million bond issue in 2008 to build a 160-bed (expandable to 200 beds) jail. That was eight years ago. Just imagine what that same jail would cost today?

Even if Flathead County taxpayers were benevolent enough to support a bond issue, a broader solution for dealing with criminals goes much deeper than building a bigger jail. As Inter Lake reporter Megan Strickland points out in her special report today, a backlog in state correctional programming, increasing use of heroin and meth and a lack of in-patient community drug treatment problems are all contributing to the issue, according to authorities.

Putting more offenders under house arrest is one solution, but Regional Chief Public Defender Nick Aemisegger says many of his clients can’t afford the electronic tracking bracelets, and if they can’t pay for house arrest, back to the slammer they go.

Aemisegger suggests putting more money into pretrial services to help people connect with resources. That makes a lot of sense; it’s the old “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure” philosophy.

Jail overcrowding is an intractable problem for Flathead County. Sheriff Chuck Curry says his office is continually looking for solutions. We encourage our county leadership to reach out to others in the corrections community to develop a plan of action sooner rather than later.