The Skagit County Sheriff’s 'First Class' Hotel
Newly formed Skagit County lacks a proper jail, forcing the sheriff to board inmates at local hotels at public expense.
A correspondent of the POST-INTELLIGENCER recently referred to the fact that persons convicted of offenses, instead of being incarcerated or compelled to work out their fines, were being boarded by the sheriff at a first-class hotel at public expense, living like lilies of the field. The obvious difficulty arises from the fact that the newly created county of Skagit has as yet no jail. The sheriff, without orders from the Board of County Commissioners, has no power to provide work or compel the prisoners to perform it. The mode in which he is to care for their safety is solely a matter of his own discretion under existing circumstances. It is doubtless aggravating to a hard-working man to witness idlers and convicted criminals living on the fat of the land at public expense. The remedy would seem to be for the Board of County Commissioners to at once furnish a place to keep them, and plenty of work for them to do.
“It is doubtless aggravating to a hard-working man to witness idlers and convicted criminals... living on the fat of the land at public expense.”
Public outcry over the 'luxury' of incarceration remains a staple of civic discourse. While today the debate focuses on jail conditions and privatization, this 1884 report captures an early moment of the administrative struggle to build the carceral infrastructure of a growing Washington Territory.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.