Our jail is inhumane.
We must do better.

Numerous commissions, committees, consultants, behavioral health professionals, and County administrations have pronounced Whatcom County jail as an inadequate, overcrowded, financial and legal liability. Its design, condition, and lack of space for services is dangerous and unhealthy for inmates and staff. It was out-of-date and undersized when opened 39 years ago. Since then, Whatcom’s population doubled, mental health and drug issues worsened, and inmates’ needs have grown.

Wasteful AND harmful.

We spend millions of tax dollars maintaining the jail beyond its useful life. Yet, inmates don’t have access to fresh air, natural light, or recreation. Inadequate space limits visitation with attorneys and family. There’s little room for treatment or counseling. 

Public safety has suffered.

Due to overcrowding, people charged with crimes are often released. We’re experiencing increased overdoses, deaths, and havoc from a growing drug crisis, like theft and other property crimes. Other communities struggle, but ours is greatly disadvantaged: a jail without capacity to deliver critical treatment or hold people accountable.

This time it’s the plan voters asked for.

A levy passed in 2004 funded building and maintenance for our minimum-security work-center at Irongate. The plan was to construct a new main Whatcom County jail as well, but more levy dollars were used to shore up current facilities than envisioned. This time we have oversight ensuring funds build a new safe, jail and behavioral care center on County owned property near I-5 and Slater. This location allows us to build a right-sized, flexible, and cost-efficient facility within minutes from both the Courthouse downtown and Irongate, where inpatient behavioral health facilities are being located.

In 2015 and 2017 voters rejected the jail levy, prioritizing diversion and behavioral health. Since then,  15+ diversion and behavioral health facilities, programs, and services have been added. Meanwhile, a diverse, informed group of citizens, mental health professionals, first-responders, and community leaders created a comprehensive roadmap for an innovative, right-sized, humane jail as just one facet of a constellation of criminal justice and behavioral health programs, services and facilities.

The roadmap, the Justice Project Implementation Plan, is Whatcom County’s response to a 40+ year crisis created when the US de-institutionalized mental healthcare putting struggling people on the street. Long-stay psychiatric hospitals were supposed to have been replaced with smaller community-based alternatives, but an appropriately funded system never materialized. Our new jail and behavioral care center will be an important component of a larger humane criminal justice and behavioral health system, that with additional State funding, regional partnerships, and leadership here in Whatcom county, could be a model for the rest of our country.

How it works. 

For twenty cents on a purchase of $100, this sales tax levy is paid by everyone (including Canadian shoppers). It delivers an estimated $137 million, safe, modern, jail with onsite behavioral care for offenders who need mental health and drug treatment. About 50% of proceeds will provide behavioral health and other public safety uses over 30 years. A comprehensive system for better criminal justice and behavioral health outcomes is within our reach.

Vote YES! this November.

People incarcerated in our Whatcom County jail are housed in dangerous and overcrowded conditions. And it is costly to maintain and operate. In plain terms, our jail is a miserable and unhealthy place to work, visit, and be incarcerated. (Photo, The Bellingham Herald)