INMATE: This wait time deserved

It was with great interest that I read the letter about the “long wait times” sent by M. Dean, a Kootenai County inmate. I think there needs to be some clarification on the issues raised by Ms. Dean.

First is the fact that Ms. Dean is not waiting for anything except her court-ordered, 120-day sentence to run its course. She was arrested March 24 for violating the conditions of her probation. She was then sentenced on April 8. She is not scheduled to be released until August.

Ms. Dean has a good deal of knowledge of the court system since she has been booked into Kootenai County Jail 23 times on 30 charges in the past 18 years. She talks about “ordinary people who happened to have a bad judgment call on their part.” I guess I don’t consider people who have been booked into jail on an average of more than once a year as “ordinary people.”

Ms. Dean raises the point regarding lowering bonds so people can live in the community pending their court appearancs. The courts try to do this as often as pssible and even employ the pretrial services at Adult Misdemeanor Probation to speed this process along. However, we know that more than 75 percent of the 4,311 active warrants in Kootenai County are for people who failed to appear in court. Obviously the threat of losing a small bond amount was not sufficient insurance to compel them to be responsible enough to appear in court.

I just thought that you would like to hear the rest of the story.

ROCKY WATSON

Kootenai County sheriff