Benton jail struggling to take in more inmates even though COVID rules ease
As COVID cases in the rest of the county have declined, so has the need to restrict who is booked into local jails.
But for the Benton County jail, the lifting of booking restrictions set by the county’s District Court judges is coming at a bad time.
Like most law enforcement agencies, as well as private businesses, across the country, the jail is having trouble hiring people.
And the problem is compounded by 12 officers out on disability with a long-term illnesses or injuries.
That’s made a significant dent in the standard 67 officers working five shifts, 24 hours in the jail in Kennewick.
With the shortages, the jail doesn’t have enough staff to open another housing unit, jail chief Robert Guerrero told the Herald. And it’s expected to stay that way for at least another month.
“We need to maintain those booking restrictions just because of our staffing issues,” he said.
While the jail has space for 720 inmates, the department doesn’t have the employees to safely monitor that many.
Currently, there are about 400 inmates in jail.
While the jail doesn’t have any active COVID cases at this point, administrators are working to make sure they don’t have any more outbreaks like the one at the Coyote Ridge Corrections Center in Connell, north of Connell.
The facility is in the midst of the biggest COVID outbreak in the Washington state prison system, with 20% of the prison’s 1,800 inmates having tested positive in the past month. Staff members have also been infected.
Benton County is requiring all incoming inmates to quarantine for 10 days away from other inmates, which has diverted some corrections officers.
County commissioners agreed to extend the restrictions while the jail hires more staff. The notice that was sent out to local police agencies said the jail will book people for:
- Any felony
- DUI
- Physical control of a vehicle while intoxicated
- Domestic violence assault
- Any Superior Court felony warrant or “no bail” District Court warrant
- Gross misdemeanor charges
- Warrants where the person is released after being booked
Jail officials expect to re-evaluate whether they need to continue the restrictions in May after some more people return from disability/medical leave.
Jail staffing and COVID
The ongoing COVID pandemic has played a role in the corrections staffing shortage.
When the disease first started affecting the Tri-Cities, the jail scaled back the number of inmates it was accepting.
And that led to trimming 13 positions in January 2021. While the jail has been able to hire about half of them back, the others decided to change careers.
The Benton County jail is now working on filling five openings, and is in the process of hiring three people. But they are not seeing the interest they had prior to COVID-19, when the jail used to get five applicants for every open position.
“We have no pending applicants,” Guerrero said. “We are reaching out to public safety testing who does our local physical and written tests. We are looking to host something locally.”
They also are contacting colleges, since applicants can be younger than 21 to work in the jail, unlike joining the police force.