Why we need more than a new jail

I attended the Grand Coulee Council meeting, Tuesday, Aug. 20. I had forgotten about the meeting until I saw four Grant County Sheriff’s vehicles in front of City Hall. I realized then it was council night. I went to investigate, thinking all this show of force was for the drug and criminal problems that plague our community. Instead it was Grant County Sheriff Tom Jones giving a presentation and wanting support to build a new jail. “The Power of Building a Safer Grant County.”

Someone has finally noticed that the existing jail is too small to hold our ever-growing number of criminals. That’s been a problem for years. Also, the jail is not up to specs for what is needed to house our growing number of criminals. Of course, this funding will come from raising taxes for all us hard-working, tax-paying, HONEST citizens who reside in this county. The increased population of law breaking, non-tax paying, non-working addicts, thieves, and criminals is not going to change because of a new jail. If the jail were built, and every law breaker would be jailed for every law they break, to make them accountable for all they have done to deserve what they get, then I believe all honest folks would be willing to be taxed yet again for something that can and should work. I just can’t see how building a new jail will fix the problem. They will also have to hire several more prosecutors to try all law breakers, and not have to make the decision of which crime was the worst to prosecute, while the rest is thrown out for lack of time or space. It wouldn’t be long before the new jail wouldn’t be big enough either.

Do we need a new jail? Absolutely! But used in a capacity more suited for today’s crimes. Jails should be a deterrent, not a place they can’t wait to get back into. Work them, and work them hard, and to hell with the liability on them; they don’t deserve it. They, themselves, need to prove to society that they are worthy of another chance.

The criminals are creative about making up excuses for why they do what they do, and then I’ll be damned if the system doesn’t make additional excuses for them, too. Bad behavior should never be rewarded, and that is certainly what is happening now. We have so many career criminals, and that certainly is something that should never happen. I am so sick of being told we must feel sorry for all these drug addicts. I don’t! But on the other hand, it’s a joy to see when one of them finally comes out of the fog and makes something of themselves. Taking drugs is a choice they themselves made. I don’t believe for a second that any of them were or are so mentally immature that they didn’t know what could, or most likely, would, happen to them the first time they tried meth, crack, spice, heroin, etc. Yet we are led to believe that they didn’t know that smoking, snorting, and injecting poison into their system would hurt them. Stupidity started early in these cases, and the drugs just added to that stupidity.

If a drug addict wants help, they should have to beg and plead for it, and then, and only then, give them the treatment “they” truly want! And if they screw that up, give them longer jail sentences. But to give them a choice between serving time in jail, or a get-out-of-jail pass if they attend drug treatment repeatedly, is asinine! They don’t want treatment; they just don’t want to be in jail. It doesn’t work! And it’s a total waste of the taxpayers hard-earned money. Crimes committed should automatically include justified punishment, but that certainly isn’t the case anymore, and look what we have going for us now. “Normal” everyday citizens have had their fill of this do-nothing system, or haven’t you heard any of us? We work to get what we need and want, and we deserve it; we worked for it! Then these creeps come along and take it and nothing happens to them. And yet we are told basically to just suck it up, and just work harder to replace what they took! NO!

I don’t blame law enforcement, although I did for a very long time. It just wouldn’t register that these low lives brazenly break the law, and nothing is done about it. Yes, I too blamed our police, but I learned it isn’t them. Now I have admiration for them all and realize what a truly thankless and sometimes dangerous job they do for each of us! But it took me becoming actively involved; and I had front row viewing for so many criminals and offenses. I set out to see from the beginning of numerous catch and repeated release, for more crimes committed, and finally, years later, a guilty verdict. Thirteen felony arrests, and God only knows how many more there were that will forever go unpunished. I was and am still appalled by it all! But finally, five-plus years later, a guilty verdict and a much shorter sentence than was deserved came down. I saw, from start to finish, how the justice system works, and it was and still is appalling! This is the failure of our system, and it MUST BE FIXED, new jail or not!

Becky Billups