Crime, Prison Profits & The Destruction Of The American Citizen

Washington's prison population has jumped 71 percent since 1980 while its general population has risen just 13 percent. The most dramatic increase has come in the last seven years.

When former Secretary Chase Riveland took over Corrections in the mid-1980s, there were so many prison beds available, the state rented them out to other states and made nearly $60 million.

Ten years later, the state is squeezing in offenders by doubling the number of bunks in handicapped or larger cells at Airway Heights Corrections Center and converting storage rooms to hold up to eight men.

Riveland once quipped that if the growth rate were straight-lined, by the year 2057 everyone in Washington would either be in prison -- or be working in one.

Airway Heights is now the state's second largest prison, with 2,043 men. Only the Washington State Penitentiary at Walla Walla holds more, with 2,300 behind bars.

All told, the state Department of Corrections spends nearly $52 million a year in Spokane County. Corrections' 838 employees in Spokane County work in offices from Hillyard to the Spokane Valley, from Airway Heights to Medical Lake. It's a work force equal to Gonzaga's or Eastern Washington University's.

"We are in the Department of Corrections business here in Spokane County just like Shelton and Walla Walla," says Spokane County Prosecutor Jim Sweetser.

In five years, the prison at Airway Heights has quadrupled in size and the work-release program has swelled. A third more beds were added to the work-release center for women, and the center for men is expected to increase by a quarter in the next several years.

"Corrections is a growth industry in that once you get it in your community, it continues to grow," says Katherine Carlson, a cultural anthropologist who has studied Washington prisons.

Prisons bring good-paying state jobs and lucrative contracts that serve the mini-cities behind bars. They're a "clean" industry insulated from most economic recessions. They never move to Mexico.

"We build them and staff them for the rest of our lives," says Walter, the superintendent at Airway Heights.

The growth in Spokane has swept up so many employees that qualification exams that used to attract hundreds for correctional officer positions now draw a quarter of the candidates. Average pay: $2,700 a month and many jobs require only a high school education.

It's a career with a future. The state expects to need 2,850 more prison beds in the next decade. Annual cost to house each offender: $24,494.

"We have to remember the enormous number of jobs created by corrections," says Kaye Adkins, the top Corrections official in Eastern Washington.

"Those are our neighbors and friends."

Community impact isn't studied

In the scramble to lock offenders up, there is almost no attention paid to the impact of prisons on nearby communities or what happens when offenders are released.

Spokane's downtown apartments and low-income neighborhoods are filling up with felons, many of whom continue friendships begun in prison.

"Nobody cares about communities," says researcher Carlson, who studied the prison at Clallam Bay.

Kasey Kramer, Spokane County's community services director, was astonished to learn of the rapid growth of Spokane's ex-felon population.

Kramer has seen the impact of mental health patients treated at Eastern State Hospital who choose to stay in the Spokane area when released.

For every one Spokane County resident treated at Eastern, another 11 from other counties stay here after treatment, Kramer says.

"We call it drift. We've documented it from the state mental hospital side, but not for ex-felons," Kramer says.

Money is not available for agencies to study these impacts, he says. "It is a weakness at the state level."

The Rev. Michael Treleaven, a Jesuit political science professor at Gonzaga University, monitors prison issues for Amnesty International.

"This is the politics of vengeance," he says. "To throw money at prisons, but not at the communities where they eventually settle is dishonest. This is a serious issue for Spokane."

Farrington, the Whitman College professor, has spent years trying to gauge the impact of the century-old penitentiary on Walla Walla, but has never seen a study on what happens to offenders when they're released.

"You think it would be logical," he says. "There's probably a lot more screw-ups than we're aware of and the flip side is -- and equally sad -- that there are some people who go through and get straightened out and we don't know that either."

Statistics show that Walla Walla, a small farm town, has violent and property crime rates from 52 to 93 percent higher than the national rate over a 17-year period.

Despite the influx of ex-convicts into Spokane, violent crime rates here have not increased.

The property crime rate is higher than the state average, but the reasons for that are unclear. Calls to Spokane's Crime Check also have increased more than 40 percent since 1993.

Former Spokane Police Chief Terry Mangan predicts the new ex-felons will nudge up the crime rate soon. They just haven't been here long enough.

"When prisoners remain in an area for an appreciable time, 70 percent of them eventually reoffend," Mangan says.

Statistics on the nation's 400,000 criminal offenders released each year back his prediction.

Washington officials say 32 percent of offenders return to prison within five years.

But that figure is misleading. It only counts offenders who return to a Washington prison and not those who wind up in county jails or other states' facilities.

"No matter what study you look at, they're reoffending," says Police Lt. Mark Caillier of Salem, Ore. "Which means your community now has to deal with it."

Caillier worked on studies that show the average inmate had 17 felony arrests before being sent to prison.

Crime analysts in the Spokane Police Department agree that for some people, crime is a way of life.

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But yet these property managers and landlords do not accept felons? but...judging by the statistics....thats a big part of spokane. so...why aren't there less homeless people? and why are they charging a 40 application fee when a basic background check is like 8 bucks a month for unlimited reports?only to then deny the majority of spokane residents...knowing darn well they were never going to consider them. that's kinda scandalous. seems kinda illegal..only no one says anything
well I am. And I am gonna keep saying it until someone hears and the rental market is more available, less biased. it's discrimination and extortion. you are forcing these felons to live on the streets because they are refused the right to safe and habitable dwellings. that's right, felons in spokane are not allowed the basic need of shelter, no matter how much money they may have. that seems inhumane. almost intentional.