Logan Finney, Idaho Reports:

Thank you all so much for joining me. First question for jail inspector Wolfinger. What exactly does your job entail? What sort of things do you look at as you travel around the state?

Ben Wolfinger, Idaho Sheriffs’ Association:

Well here in the state of Idaho, the Sheriffs’ Association has come up with about 78 pages of criteria for jails. And we look at everything from food service, to access to medical care, to square footage per inmate, to general cleanliness, fire safety training for staff, ensuring there’s enough staff on duty to deal for and care for the inmates. So, there’s quite a long laundry list of criteria.

Finney:

And so, when you’re doing these inspections, you also do certifications for the jail as well, correct?

Wolfinger:

If they meet all the mandatory requirements that are in that criteria, and at least 75% of the recommended requirements, then they get certification from the Sheriffs’ Association.

Finney:

Is there any sort of penalty or negative consequences if a jail doesn’t meet those requirements?

Wolfinger:

A copy of the reports go to ICRMP, which is the insurance company for most of the jails here in Idaho. And ICRMP certainly has the ability to adjust their coverage, raise their rates, things like that if they fail to comply. But that’s an ICRMP issue, not a sheriffs’ association issue.

Finney:

So, to the sheriffs around the table, we’ll start with you, Sheriff Creech. Can you tell me what is the situation like in Payette County? What does your jail look like today?

Andy Creech, Payette County Sheriff:

We have a 69-bed jail that we manage there, and we’ve recently failed our inspection this last year because of overcrowding. We’re expecting that we’ll probably fail it again in the next year as well for the same reason. About 25 to 30% of my inmates are state inmates that we’re waiting for the state to pick up and move. And that’s pretty consistent every day of the year. We’re just trying to manage our facility and starting to look for possible growth because we’ve outgrown our jail. It’s over 20 years old and it’s time to be looking for an expansion so that we can keep housing the criminals and stuff in our county to help protect our county better.

Finney:

How overcrowded are you right now?

Creech:

You know, we are at 65 inmates today out of the 69. And the hard part is that some days we’ll run up into the seventies with inmates as well. But when you’re looking at just jail total numbers, you also have to look at what type of inmates. And so I might be under my maximum capacity, but I’m going to be over my women’s inmates pod and I’m going to be over my protective custody pod. I’ll be over in my segregation pods. And so, when you start looking at individual types of inmates, I’m over capacity in numerous different areas of my jail today.

Finney:

Sure. I think that’s an important detail is a bed is not the same for every type of inmate. There’s lots of different factors you have to consider there. Sheriff Mabey, over in southeastern Idaho, what’s the situation like for you guys over there?

Adam Mabey, Caribou County Sheriff:

We’re doing fairly well with our facility. We just passed our jail inspection. We are a 49-bed facility. I usually try to keep it anywhere between 40 to 45 inmates, so I have room to grow. Kind of a unique situation we’re in, I contract with Bear Lake County Sheriff and Oneida County Sheriff to house their inmates. So, between those two counties and the state, I’m able to keep my numbers at a point that I’m comfortable in dealing with. But just like Sheriff Creech, my facility is coming up on 20 years, too. And in a jail, 20 years is really hard, hard on a facility. There’s a lot of hard things that go on within them. So, we’re always looking at ways to try to improve our facility, to make sure the maintenance is up on it, make sure everything’s working.

Finney:

And Sheriff Humphries, your county, you guys just recently, or are about to complete an expansion of the jail, is that right?

Len Humphries, Fremont County Sheriff:

That is correct. Our existing facility is a 20-bed jail that is 43 years old. We started an expansion onto our jail three years ago and are scheduled to move into the new facility in January. That will add another 44 beds to our existing facility.

Finney:

So, the addition will be more than double the current capacity. Is that because you guys are seeing a large need, or had a good opportunity for construction? What’s the motivation there?

Humphries:

We’re always at capacity with 20 beds. And in fact, we do not house female inmates, Madison County houses those for us. When we are over capacity in males, Jefferson County or Madison County picks up that slack for us. This will be an opportunity for us to take care of the numbers that we need to in house.

Finney:

What sort of logistical issues and even legal issues are presented when a jail is overcrowded, and you don’t have room or proper levels of staff? What sort of issues does that cause for the county more broadly?

Humphries:

Well, it poses a problem with our insurance company. It poses a problem with outside agencies that will take opportunities to file lawsuits. It’s an area that none of us want to be in, especially taking care of the inmates that are in house. We want to make sure that they’re all treated properly and have their needs met, that are necessary for their positions where they’re at in the jails.

Wolfinger:

You think, too, that it’s no different than in your house. If you’re overcrowded in your house, tensions get a little bit, you know, high and people snap a little bit, and they snap at each other, and same thing happens in a jail when you’re overcrowded. I mean, everybody needs a little bit of their own space. Well, then then you get inmate on inmate assaults. So, you get inmate on staff assaults. So, I mean, there’s a risk factor, a physical risk factor that goes with that overcrowding issue as well. So, you know, having enough space for everybody is very important. And we have to make sure that we maintain the rights of these people. We have to understand that in our county jails, 70 to 80% of those people are pre adjudicated. So, they’re innocent until proven guilty. And we have to preserve those rights, for them to be safely held, and that’s very important.

Finney:

And then part of this equation as well is some of the jails also end up with state inmates for people who are charged in a county, if Idaho Department of Correction doesn’t have bed space for them yet, those people are stuck waiting in a county facility. And that’s another bed that the county couldn’t use, correct?

Creech:

That’s correct. Yeah. And for me, you know, out of 69 beds that I have available, that’s 15 to 20 inmates that I’m holding for the state, just waiting for them to pick them up and move them somewhere else.

Finney:

Talking about funding here. It’s kind of infamously difficult to pass a bond here in Idaho because of the two-thirds requirement that you have to get with voters. It’s, some would say, more common for a jail bond to fail on a local vote than it is to pass. Are there any other sort of funding options that are available to a county if you’re looking at a jail expansion, if a bond isn’t necessarily in the cards? Or are you limited to that?

Humphries:

Fremont County, for example, entered into a lease-purchase agreement where we’ll make payments for 30 years, at the end of 30 years, the lease is up, and the property becomes Fremont County’s. That option doesn’t exist today. That’s my understanding, that the legislation has changed and so we were able to do that before the legislature made the changes. So today it’s very difficult if you’re going to try to fund construction on the jail.

Finney:

Speaking of the legislature, does the state offer any sort of support or any sort of funding for these types of facilities?

Group:

No. They don’t. No.

Finney:

One of the options that comes up is a local option sales tax, which is a funding mechanism where a local jurisdiction could add a little bit to the 6% sales tax that Idaho charges and keep those funds locally. That was an option for a period in roughly the 2000s that Kootenai County and Nez Perce County used. What sort of conversations do you hear from lawmakers when the counties pitch this idea to bring back a local option sales tax?

Wolfinger:

Well, I worked for Kootenai County for almost 38 years, and I was there as the jail commander when we did that in the early 2000s. So, we’re very familiar with that. And it worked very well. And we found that we paid the jail off quicker than we expected. The sales revenue was actually underreported. Unfortunately, lawmakers don’t want to talk about, you know, another tax. And we’re not asking them to levy a tax. We’re asking them only with this local option sales tax to give the local community the option to vote for it. And let the local community make the decision. You know, it comes back to local control is the best control. And that’s all we’re asking for, is that ability to have the local people decide whether or not they want to pay for it through a sales tax. And all the people that come to those communities, who buy things in those communities, to help pay for that as well.

Finney:

Sheriff Mabey, in your area do you think that’s something that voters would be interested in?

Mabey:

I think it’s something that they’d want to take a look at and see if that is an option that they’d be willing to go with. A lot of people are getting more supportive of law enforcement now, and as long as it’s a very specific focus on what that tax would be used for, I think there’d be a lot more support coming our way.

Wolfinger:

I think the other side of that, though, is we have to remember that the proposal isn’t that we take 1% in sales tax and it would all go to a project. Only half of it would go to that project, the other half would go to property tax relief for as long as that was active, until that facility was paid off. And so, the people benefit in the long run from property tax relief that allows visitors to those communities to help pay for the facilities.

Finney:

And one of the other details here is there are 44 different counties, 44 different elected sheriffs, but not every single county in Idaho has its own jail. There’s a little bit of regionalization going on there. How much coordination do you do with the other sheriffs in your area, as far as moving that population? How much of a drain on your resources is that?

Creech:

For us, we contact all of the jails in our area to try to help move inmates that we can move. But unfortunately, where we’re at right here on the edge of the Treasure Valley, all the jails in my area are full. And so, moving inmates to a neighboring jail is really hard, to do that. And I would have to drive them across state to get them there. And so, when you do that, then you only look at inmates you’re not going to be bringing back for court and stuff. It really limits the ability for you to help manage that population better.

Finney:

Sheriff Mabey, you get inmates from as far away as Ada County, is that correct?

Mabey:

I will work with Ada County to move some of their state inmates to be housed with us to help eliminate some of the crowding that they have. I do contract with two other counties, Bear Lake County and Oneida County, where they have a set amount of beds set up with me under contract that I provide them whenever they need to utilize it. I also help Franklin County in holding their state inmates whenever they have problems. And there are other sheriffs in southeast Idaho who are struggling and who are looking for other options to try to move inmates around. But not all sheriffs have that ability to help them out. It’s like Sheriff Creech says, he’s at the point where he can’t, he couldn’t take anybody. And so those sheriffs, they struggle. And that’s why I try to help them out as much as I possibly can.

Finney:

Inspector Wolfinger, the three other sheriffs who are who are here today, they’re kind of a medium-range population and size of jail. How do considerations for a jail change with the scale of the county?

Wolfinger:

Well, I think that you’re looking at, you know, a larger county. Obviously, you have to have a larger jail with your population. You also have to look at what kind of industry you have in an area, what kind of tourism you have in an area. Here in Boise, you have a lot of visitors. I’m from Coeur d’Alene. We have a lot of visitors. That certainly has an impact on the jail. I know that when we did jail expansions, our numbers showed we were about between 30 or 35% of our county inmates were not county residents. And so that has a major impact on an area like that. You know, different parts of the state have different peak tourist seasons. But we’re really, there’s a lot of tourism that comes through Idaho and that does have an impact on our county jails. The larger the community, the larger the jail, and then the larger the needs in that jail. You’re going to look at Maybe a 24-hour medical unit inside of a jail. I mean, most of the people we get in the jail have some sort of a substance abuse problem or a mental health issue. And so, we have to be able to treat those areas adequately. And in those larger areas, they’ve got almost like a mini hospital inside the facility with staff 24 hours a day. Of course, you’ve got to then, you still have to provide all the other services like food services and laundry and things like that to go with that. And so those are expenses that don’t go away. That really doesn’t go away if you have a small jail or a big jail. But they just have to be scaled, you know, for the bigger facility.

Finney:

As we referenced, in Fremont County you guys are finishing up an expansion that’s expected to be open soon. Over in Payette County, you guys are considering a jail expansion, is that right? What’s that process looking like?

Creech:

Yeah. So right now, the commissioners have been meeting with different contractors and they’re getting ready to make a decision on hiring somebody to help us start that process and to begin looking at what size of a jail do we need to expand to and where, how would be the best way for us to do that so that when we get ready to go to the voters, you know, hopefully we’ll have some voter input in that process so that they have a chance to kind of weigh in and say this is what we want in our community, so that hopefully when we get to the bond or local option tax or, you know, whatever we find that we can use as a revenue source to pay for it, hopefully we can get some buy-in from the community because they were part of the process.

Finney:

One final question out to the group here. As lawmakers are convening in this 2024 session, if local option sales tax is a complete nonstarter, is there something else that the state could do, or other policy changes they could make to help alleviate the situation in the county jails?

Humphries:

Well, the legislature can do pretty much what they would like to do. And I think that we see that. I think what’s been, what’s a failure in the state is that our population has significantly increased in the last 20 years, and yet the beds for jails or prisons have not increased in correspondence with that huge increase in population. And Idaho has become a very popular recreation area. Recreation in Fremont County is probably the second largest business or enterprise that exists, and that brings hundreds of thousands of people through our county every year. And some of them make mistakes and they end up in jail. And that puts a huge burden on the local property taxes. And if there was some way to have assistance, whether it’s construction of a building or costs, we would love to sit down and talk with them about that.

Finney:

All right. Well, unfortunately, that is all the time we have. Fremont County Sheriff Len Humphries, Payette County Sheriff Andy Creech, Caribou County Sheriff Adam Mabey and Jail Inspector Ben Wolfinger with the Idaho Sheriffs’ Association. Thank you all for joining us today.