Interesting post. I have stumbled this for my friends. Hope others find it as interesting as I did.

LC mentioned: "some could even be innocent!"

Many people in jail haven't even been to trial yet, so technically they *are* innocent (until proven guilty). Sorry to be pedantic, I just took my jury duty very seriously.

I personally don't feel the threat, and I would like more evidence about what similar county/municipal jails have actually done to surrounding neighborhoods than conjecture around unsavory characters and proximity to bus lines. The #15 currently runs just a few blocks from the jail downtown and Ballard doesn't seem to be overrun with criminals armed with bus passes and malicious intent.

I should temper that a bit - it isn't the worst thing in the world, but it will have an effect on the local neighborhoods and adjoining. .

along the lines of LC - It isn't the criminals in the jail that I worry about - it is the folks that were criminals that were just released into our neighborhoods and onto the 15 busline that I'm worried about.

Ballard should be in on this fight too. Just like Georgetown fought off the dump, we need to fight this.

The idea of *uncontained* criminals a few thousand feet from where I sleep is really quite scary, yet it's probably happening all the time and I just don't know it.

Keep in mind that the most "hardened criminals" do get shuffled off to prison once they're convicted. The term "jail" refers to facilities that house people who aren't yet convicted (and thus need to stay in the city while they are in and out of court--some could even be innocent!) or are serving a term of less than one year. This according to Wikipedia anyway: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jail#United_States .

I guess the honest-to-goodness worst thing about the jail would be the influx of visitors? Some of whom might be as unsavory if not more than so than the people whom they are visiting?

It should certainly be built as far away from residences as possible. However, Seattle's geography is such that we don't have a lot of area without neighborhoods nearby. If we could afford it, it should be built downtown like the other one, near the courthouse, to cut back on the difficulty of transferring the occupants to and from their court dates. Doesn't the original jail have a skybridge over to the courthouse so that they don't even go outside?

i agree LC. i think it is mostly perception, which is fair enough. the though of hardened criminals being only a few thousand feet from where i sleep isn't exactly a 'pleasant' idea... but is it really a risk? probably not.

i would rather a jail than a dump.

I understand resistance to change, especially when you have a sweeping view down onto Interbay (although not traditionally pretty with the bus yard and train-switching yard, even though I tend to like those kinds of things), but what are the residents really objecting to? As long as the building is installed where the zoning is appropriate (the industrial/warehouse areas instead of next to the local elementary) and the building is not an eyesore (which would be a very legitimate complaint), it shouldn't really be a problem. I don't think it's likely that a jail will attract criminals to the area except the ones that are interred. Escapes are rarer than rare. If anything, I would think that people with criminal inclinations would be subconsciously repelled from the area by its presence! I applaud people getting together and standing up for their neighborhood, but can anyone tell me what the gist of the complaint is?