Washington Rural Jails Network
By Jennifer Schwartz, Jennifer Sherman, Clay Mosher, Christian Maynard, Megan Parks, Marisa Cervantes, Sandra Yokley.
Kittitas County Spotlight
Sheriff’s Offices in Ferry, Grant, Kittitas, Okanogan, and Whitman counties shared jail data for January 2015 to June 2020
The project had several goals
- Gather and analyze administrative jail data from select rural counties in Washington.
- Build knowledge of specific factors affecting jail population trends.
- Gain perspective of justice-involved people and justice staff via interviews
- Share lessons from research and data analysis with local representatives and stakeholders.
Key Facts
- Most assaults (61%) were related to domestic violence.
- Driving with a suspended license was a common mechanism for jail entry.
- DUI was a common reason for single entry into jail.
- Some 7 percent of pretrial jail admissions were drug-related.
One in five people were booked into jail pretrial for assault
- Assault, 18%
- DUI, 15%
- Driving with a license suspended, 14%
- Probation violation, 9%
- Drugs, 7%
Jail admissions were stable with upward gains during 2019 before a drastic decline around the start of the COVID-19 pandemic
Admissions averaged about 200 admissions from 2015 to 2019, with a sharp decline during the COVID-19 pandemic
Rural Context:
Rural counties face resource constraints, staffing shortages; limited health, mental health, and substance treatment services; and scant communication, transportation, and legal infrastructure.
Methamphetamines were most common in drug-related offenses
- Methamphetamine, 41%
- Unknown, 28%
Assaults were a key driver of pretrial reentry
- One booking
- Failure to Appear, 6%
- Assault, 17%
- DUI, 18%
- Driving with a license suspended, 15%
- Drugs, 7%
- Three or more bookings
- Failure to Appear, 2%
- Assault, 27%
- DUI, 3%
- Driving with a license suspended, 13%
- Drugs, 9%
Average # of pretrial days spent in jail by charge
- Average (all offenses), 12
- Drugs, 16
- Assault, 12
- DUI, 12
- DWLS, 7
- Holds, 7
- Failure to Appear, 3
% of people who spend 24 hours or less in jail pretrial by charge
- Average (all offenses), 55%
- Drugs, 35%
- Assaults, 35%
- DUI, 55%
- DWLS, 32%
- Holds, 44%
- Failure to Appear, 75%
Over half of those booked into jail pretrial for failing to appear were released within one day. By contrast, 27 percent of those booked into jail for DUI were released within 24 hours.