Flathead County's aging jail doesn’t serve today’s needs

The stench of sewage can linger for days in the detectives’ offices.

Directly below the Flathead County Detention Center, water leaks through ceiling tiles after an inmate flushes an object and clogs the facility’s nearly 40-year-old piping. It’s a regular occurrence, jail officials say, but hardly the most concerning aspect of the aging center, built in 1987.

Long, narrow hallways without direct sightlines present serious safety issues for correctional officers.

“Our officers are walking in blind,” Commander Jenny Root told the Daily Inter Lake editorial board last week.

Inmates with mental health needs, meanwhile, are often kept in the jail’s ill-equipped medical wing.

“We very rarely have actual people who are sick down here,” Root said as she gave two Inter Lake reporters a tour of the jail. “Our worst of our worst mental health are down here.”

From the judicial perspective, judges are making difficult decisions due to capacity restraints. With just 96 beds, Justice Court Judge Eric Hummel said he starts every day by deciding which recent arrests should be kept in jail and which inmates should be released to open another cell.

“We’ve had 100 beds for 40 years,” Hummel said. “It’s time.”

The county’s solution is a modern 200-bed detention center in South Kalispell on Snowline Lane.

Voters are being asked to support a $105 million bond to build the jail, which would equate to about $77 a year for a home valued at $600,000.

The county has already purchased the property for $3.9 million, and the city is currently considering its annexation to connect it to city infrastructure. The location in South Kalispell blends with nearby industrial uses and offers easy access from the downtown Justice Center.

While the projected price tag might seem steep, construction costs rarely decrease. Whatever the price is today, it will likely be more expensive in the future.

The county has put some skin in the game, having set aside about $18 million to lower the bond request. Officials have also looked for areas of value engineering in the new jail design. With initial projections coming in at $140 million, they’ve shaved about $25 million through design changes.

Voters should know that the new, larger facility will require roughly 14 new staff members. County officials have assured there is no levy request to fund those positions, but mills currently not being spent could be tapped.

Then there’s the issue of investing in sheriff’s deputies who are on the front lines of public safety.

It would be prudent for county officials to be forthright about how they intend to maintain and staff a new jail over the long term, while also ensuring deputies receive the pay they deserve.

As for space, Hummel said it’s probable a larger detention center will run near capacity. The county’s population has ballooned to such a level that it simply necessitates additional jail space.

Root, meanwhile, highlighted how the new facility would allow officers to better accommodate inmates with mental health needs and take a more holistic approach to addressing those challenges, as they are often held for long periods of time while due process plays out. While it would be a small step toward addressing the mental health deficiencies that plague Montana, giving detention officers the tools they need would represent significant progress on the local level.

The discussion about a new detention center has been going on for decades, with every previous proposal met with some version of “wrong location” or “now is not the time.”

But this proposal is different. The design and site are thoughtful, the financing is reasonable and the need is only increasing with each passing year.

Now is the time to finally build a new jail.

UPDATE: This story has been updated to correct the title of Flathead County Justice Court Judge Eric Hummel.