| The King County Cities Jail Administration Group (JAG), representing a 37-city consortium, selected Ricci Greene Associates to develop a Strategic Plan for addressing the management of the misdemeanant population. Presently, the cities rely on a combination of the municipal correctional system and county level facilities to hold their misdemeanants, but the counties will no longer hold city misdemeanant beginning in 2010, and the cities require a long-term solution for housing their respective inmates. Our role is to assess system policies, practices, and needs to develop an alternative future for the city jails system. Options may include a new regionalized jail facility(s), expansion of local jail facilities, continuation of contract services, greater use of alternatives to incarceration; or a combination of alternatives.
Tasks include evaluation of current system practices, inmate population profiles and projections; alternatives to incarceration analysis, development of capacity options, and comparative capital and operational cost estimates. The Strategic Plan that is ultimately developed must respond to the needs of the city system as a whole, and also have the buy-in of the participating cities.
Two separately funded but linked components of the study include developing needs assessments of new jail facilities for the cities of Seattle and Auburn. These studies will include jail population analyses and projections; alternatives to incarceration; capacity options; operational and space programming; and construction and staffing cost estimates. The information generated as part of these studies will assist the two cities in assessing the relative benefits, challenges, and costs for developing their own facilities versus participating in the larger JAG initiative.
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