Projected Number of Jail Beds for Seattle

• A brief look at Seattle’s misdemeanant inmates
• The average inmate spends 10 days in jail on a Seattle misdemeanor charge.  Some people are booked and released within 48 hours. Others may spend up to a year serving a jail sentence.
• People are most often booked in jail on misdemeanor charges related to property (e.g., theft), driving under the influence (DUI), assault, domestic violence, and criminal trespass.   
• Seventy-eight percent of the people booked in jail went to jail only once that year; only 20 percent of that group returned to jail the following year. About 1 percent of the individuals in jail have five or more jail bookings per year.
• Determining how much municipal jail space Seattle needs

Seattle (along with the other cities in King County) hired a consultant to create a long-term jail population forecast, as well as develop some preliminary long-term municipal jail housing options. The consultant estimates that in 2026, Seattle will need 445 municipal jail beds.

• Read the executive summary
• Read the full report

Municipal Jail Bed Space Projections

• Seattle’s projection assumes a 15 percent growth rate factor spread over
  20 years (less than 1 percent per year) based on overall city population growth; the rest of the cities assume a 25 percent growth rate.
• These projections assume that an additional 8 percent of the people currently in jail will be diverted due to an increased use of alternatives to incarceration.  Without this assumption, the City would need 40 more jail beds. Current programs, such as Community Court and Day Reporting, have reduced the jail population by roughly 20 – 25 people a day on a combined average.
• Seattle’s average daily population is projected to be 383 by 2026. The jail bed space projection is 15 percent higher than the average daily jail population to allow for peaking factors (e.g., Saturday nights are busier than Tuesday nights; the jail population in August is higher than December, etc.).

2005 Incarceration Rate by City
Average Daily Jail Population per 1,000 population

• Despite its size, Seattle’s incarceration rate is comparable to Bellevue, Kirkland, Shoreline – and less than 20 percent of the incarceration rate for Auburn, Issaquah, Renton and Tukwila.

Note:  Auburn, Issaquah, and Renton each operate jails with a capacity of 50 to 60 beds; Kirkland has a jail with 10 beds.

Seattle’s Average Daily Jail Population by Year

• Seattle’s jail population has dropped by 38 percent since 1996 – while the number of people who live in Seattle has grown by 8 percent.