Seattle-Snohomish prison plan is ridiculous and dangerous

The City of Seattle and Snohomish County have come up with an incredibly dangerous plan that could put folks who live and work in Everett at risk. And not many people are talking about it.

The City of Seattle has a problem: they need more jail space. They could do what they’re doing now, which is try to get more space in the King County Jail, but it’s pretty pricey.

So the city looked to make a deal with Snohomish County to send Seattle criminals to Everett.

Sending inmates to Everett would cost Seattle $1 million less per year than with King County.

Now, none of this is new or particularly controversial &#8212 this is routine for cities all across the country. But there’s a bit of a problem that city leaders are highlighting for those of you who live or work in Everett: when a Seattle criminal gets out of jail, he or she isn’t shipped back to Seattle. They’re just given a complimentary bus ticket. Which means, they may not even use it, and they may stick around Everett, and city leaders there aren’t exactly in love with the idea.

According to My Everett News, city leaders want to require Seattle to physically guarantee a transport back to the city.

That’s in contrast to the agreement Everett has with Yakima County. Everett sends prisoners to Yakima, because it’s cheaper for them and then Yakima provides transportation back to Everett.

I don’t know if that’s because Everett leaders are being fair and doing the right thing or they’re being dopey and not choosing to do what Ed Murray wants to do, which is ship out, and keep out, criminals.

I know Murray is all about his safe streets initiative – I thought it was just about lowering speed limits, paving sidewalks and putting up speed cameras. Who knew it also included sending criminals to other cities?

So Snohomish County is now deciding on this agreement, and to me, it seems remarkably irresponsible for Snohomish leaders to not require Seattle to transport the criminals back.

And for Ed Murray to think it’s OK to ship out criminals, while I’m sure he thinks it makes Seattlites safer (and it probably does), is that a moral decision to put the danger on a neighbor?