U.S. Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler recently visited the Clark County Jail.
Molly Solomon / OPB
Washington Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler is back in town and spent Thursday morning on a tour of the Clark County Jail.
She spoke with corrections officers about ways to better help inmates with mental health and substance abuse issues.
Officials at the jail told Herrera Beutler their facility is overcrowded, and needs more treatment options for inmates.
The jail's detox center was packed with a dozen cots as inmates dealing with addiction wait out withdrawal symptoms.
Another part of the facility used to be an intake area where inmates were fingerprinted and processed. With little space available, the jail has since turned it into a nurse’s station.
Herrera Beutler said more needs to be done to add beds, and possibly a new facility. She recently introduced a bill that would free up federal dollars to finance it.
“I needed to see the situation as it is,” Herrera Beutler said. “There are more needs and more resources than they actually have here currently. So we need to do better.”
The Camas Republican said a separate facility is needed for inmates dealing with mental health and addiction.
Her bill, co-sponsored with Washington Democratic Rep. Derek Kilmer, would allow the Department of Health and Human Services to offer loans and loan guarantees for the construction of new psychiatric and substance abuse treatment facilities.
“It would help ease jail overcrowding, but also get folks into the right place,” she added. “We don’t want to see someone who’s been struggling with addiction or mental health in a maximum-security prison.”
The Clark County Jail was originally built with a bed capacity of 300. A series of remodels have brought that up to 570, but on busy nights, the jail holds more than 700 inmates.
Chief Corrections Deputy Ric Bishop estimates as many as 100 inmates at any time may suffer from mental illness.
Bishop recently proposed a plan to the Clark County Council that would cost between $268 million and $284 million. The proposal would bring up the bed count to 1,028 in five years.