Lewis County Jail Sees ‘Steady’ Increase in Need for Restrictive Inmate Housing

Lewis County Jail officials have reported a steady increase in the need of restricted housing cells for inmates — an increase that at least one official said corresponds with an increase in mental health issues among the incarcerated population.

“I think in the past two years and even before that, we’ve been seeing a steady increase in the need for single cells. There’s been an increase in mental health issues that we see, and I don’t know the exact reason for that. I suspect there might be drug use issues that may contribute to that,” said Stan Langland, the classification officer for the jail.

Individuals exhibiting mental health concerns, violent tendencies or other issues that would keep them from getting along with other inmates are kept in single cell — also called restrictive housing — environments. It’s not an ideal setting, said Langland. Six mental health counselors from Cascade Mental Health work with inmates. The goal is for everyone to be in some sort of housing environment that allows contact with other inmates.

“We prefer that they not be,” said Langland of inmates in single cell housing. “But our primary goal is safety and security, and one of … our primary duties is to keep everyone here as safe as possible.”

Jail staff take the opinions of the mental health counselors seriously. They meet with inmates in what used to be a library. A chain-link fence sits in the middle of the room, separating the counselor and the inmate. They also sometimes meet in areas designated for attorneys and their clients.

Once per week, Langland meets with jail staff and mental health professionals. He has a list of every inmate in single cell housing, and talks about counselors’ opinions as to whether they are ready and would benefit from different housing.

Anyone charged with a class A felony — like murder — is also put in restrictive housing.

During a recent tour of the jail with The Chronicle, and an interview with jail staff, Langland pointed out some of the key points of jail classification and strategies for housing inmates in the appropriate spot.

Single cells, or restrictive housing, are the most restricting housing situations in the jail. Langland said there are about 40 to 50 such cells. Langland said in single cell units — consisting of a number of cells surrounding an open area — everyone gets to roam the unit for an hour a day, and only one inmate at a time.

Minimum security housing, on the other hand, allows up to 60 inmates to live together in an open setting — with bunks lining the perimeter of the large rooms.

Langland said inmates wear different colored jumpsuits that represent their level of risk to security. For instance, red represents the maximum security risk while green represents the minimum. Orange is midrange security, while red with white stripes means the inmate has shown assaultive behavior.

Anytime someone is booked into the jail, they are assigned a risk score that dictates in which unit they’ll be placed. Langland said the score is calculated using a scoring system created by the American Jail Association. The score hinges on things like past criminal convictions, their age and whether they have a history of disciplinary issues.

Additionally, some inmates must be housed in separate units because they are co-defendants in the same case or because their cases are connected in some way. When this happens, both inmates are issued what Langland called a “keep separate.” That ensures that extra care is taken that the two never encounter each other in the facility.

Langland is the only designated jail staff member to work on classification, and he’s held the job for about five years. LCSO Corrections Chief Chris Sweet said that in 2008, several positions were cut from the jail staff. One of them was a classification officer, leading a job that used to be done by two people to be down to one.

Sweet praised Langland’s work, and said he’s doing the job of more than one person. Although, one jail sergeant’s job title has been altered to assist in inmate classification.

Capt. Chris Tawes said the current jail staff is enough to handle the workload handed them. However, the current maximum inmate capacity — 250 — could be bumped up to 300 if they were to be back at pre-2008 staffing. In 2018, the average daily population hovered around 228.

“We’re pretty comfortable where we’re at for our staffing levels versus how many inmates we take right now. That’s why we cap it off at 250, because it just gets overwhelming. It gets too many inmates for the number of staff we have,” Tawes said.

Anytime the population hits 250, the jail goes on restrictive booking — meaning they’ll only accept suspects of felonies or certain serious misdemeanors, like domestic violence. The jail has gone on restrictive booking at least twice since 2019 began. Last year, the jail imposed those restrictions six or seven times, Tawes said.

Sweet said the number of felony filings has increased, putting more of a strain on an already bloated population. In March, Lewis County Prosecutor Jonathan Meyer said felony filings were up 8 percent from the same time last year.

“We’re housing more higher felony charges or crimes than a misdemeanor charge. We have a lot of misdemeanors in here, too, but just to house these individuals in a restrictive setting, there’s more of that need,” Sweet said.

That’s not a problem unique to Lewis County. The jail is contracted with Thurston County, Olympia and the Department of Corrections to hold their overflow of inmates, said Tawes. The problem is, sometimes Lewis County just doesn’t have the space to hold them either.

The rising number of inmates needing maximum or medium security housing means that sometimes, jail staff members have to repurpose areas of the jail.

“Somehow, we’ll figure it out. We’ll always make it work. We have to get creative every now and then,” Tawes said.

“Getting creative” sometimes means moving a single inmate from one bed to another, combining inmates with similar classifications or simply repurposing an entire unit to hold inmates with higher risk scores.

Sometimes, jail staff has to repurpose a unit meant for men to house women, to accommodate a sharply increasing female population. Although there are on average significantly more men than women in the jail, (on Wednesday, 162 men and 36 women were housed in general population). the female population has grown in percentage more than the male population over the past several years, said Tawes.

While male and female units are typically kept at a distance, sometimes they have to be beside each other. In those times, jail staff are a more cautious that an inmate being moved doesn’t get too much of a view of the other gender’s unit.