Valley needs new jail
Blaine County residents need to grow up and think straight about the need for a new jail.
Unlike its garbage, the county can?t send all of its incarcerated toughs, burglars, thieves and drunks off to some place that?s out of sight and out of mind. Even miscreants can?t be discarded as easily as yesterday?s junk mail, even if we wished it so.
Most county jail inmates reside there only for the time it takes to make bail, wait for trial or serve out short sentences. The hard cases end up in the state prison system. And, contrary to popular perception, most inmates were not just drifting through the valley when they landed in jail. As jailers will attest, the jail hosts mostly local residents who crossed the line in one situation or another.
Although video hearings have gained favor across the country, inmates still need access to the lawyers who defend them, and still have a right to face their accusers?in person. That means they need to be near the County Judicial Building?or the county will have to foot a huge bill for a lot of jailers to transport inmates from some far-flung location to the courtrooms in Hailey.
It?s easy to stand up and insist ?not in my town, not in my valley.? But that?s easier said than done.
For planning purposes, jails are similar to hotels and require the same kinds of public services. Blaine County and its cities agreed more than 30 years ago to concentrate such high-density developments in its cities?where services can be easily provided?instead of in the hinterlands where services are expensive.
The existing county jail was obsolete years ago. Its leaking roofs and overcrowded conditions are not ploys put forth by greedy bureaucrats trying to bilk the public of money. The need is real and pressing.
It?s time residents pulled their heads out of the sand, resisted the urge to go NIMBY, and do what needs to be done: Build a new jail.
