The High Costs Of Jailing the Mentally Ill: 15,000 per Stay

Keith Ervin of The Seattle Times reports today that someone booked into the King County Jail will usually stay an average of 9-35 days, but if the offender is mentally ill , the stay is usually about 158 days. And the cost to the county is $15,000 , or much more for the severely ill, based on a daily cost of $98.00 and a booking charge of $180.00. The Metropolitan King County Council, understandably alarmed by these numbers, is mounting a campaign to establish more treatment programs, get inmates out of jail faster, and ideally, prevent them from going there in the first place. The first order of business is to establish a funding mechanism for the effort, and to this end the council is studying the feasability of a one-tenth of one percent increase in the sales tax.