Seattle Crooks May Soon Serve Their Jail Time in Everett

As the city of Everett talks of sending more prisoners to Yakima to save money there appears to be a pending agreement with the City of Seattle to send its prisoners to the Snohomish County Jail for a similar reason. In a story written by Daniel Beekman of our news partner The Seattle Times a decision is likely to happen next week.

The Seattle City Council will decide Monday whether to let Mayor Ed Murray sign an agreement allowing some of the city’s misdemeanor inmates to be housed at the Snohomish County Jail in Everett rather than the King County Jail in Seattle.

Murray’s public-safety adviser says supplementary jail space is needed. He says various parties involved have agreed on the Snohomish County Jail as the best option.

The Everett City Council has already expressed concerns about the practice of the jail releasing non-Everett prisoners onto Everett streets once they have served their time instead of being taken back to the jurisdiction where they were arrested.

MyEverettNews.com does not know if that issue is addressed in the current proposal between Snohomish County Jail officials and the City of Seattle. We’ll try to find out on Monday.

There have also been concerns that Everett Police arrest people for misdemeanors or warrants, take them to the Snohomish County jail which often declines to book prisoners stating there is no room for those who have recently used drugs.

The officers then generally take the person back to the area of town where they were originally arrested and give them a notice to appear in court.

Also many people who have warrants out of the City of Marysville but are arrested in Everett are released as the Marysville Jail also often has booking restrictions.

Given that it is often either too expensive or too difficult to book an Everett arrestee into into the local jail it will be interesting to see if the agreement with Seattle will indeed move forward.