JAIL: Look closer at 'crimes'

In your article “Coping with criminals,” you neglected to point out one major thing: What we are incarcerating people for.

Idaho has more people in prison because of parole and probation violations than any other state in the country.

According to the Council of State Governments Justice Center, in 2018, 62% of the state’s prison population were serving time in prison because they violated the terms of their probation or parole.

Some on probation and parole commit new crimes and are thus sentenced to prison because of those new crimes.

But some commit what are known as “technical violations,” violations of the terms of their probation that would not otherwise be crimes, such as drinking alcohol or missing an appointment. Because of these technical violations, we have people serving full prison terms without committing a new crime.

As of July 2019, 9,042 people were incarcerated in Idaho’s prisons; 5,298 are in for probation violations.

In Kootenai County it’s worse. Of the nearly 400 individuals in the county jail, 117 of them are being jailed for technical probation violations. That’s roughly 30% of the jail’s population. At $83.83 a day, do the math.

The mission statement of Kootenai County’s adult misdemeanor probation department is to reduce incarceration and recidivism rates. With 117 people in our county jail for technical probation violations, that mission has been an utter failure.

The sheriff’s department isn’t understaffed. We are over-incarcerated.

Instead of jail expansions and re-entry centers and recruitment, the sheriff’s department would be wise to completely overhaul its probation department. Fire Keith Hutcheson and Melissa Miller who are in charge of misdemeanor probation. Let’s vote out our county executives who oversee the county probation department.

JOHN SALVIA

Coeur d’Alene