By RACHEL BRANT

Staff writer

A Silverdale man leads Kitsap County Sheriff’s deputies on a high speed chase through the back roads of Seabeck. When he is finally apprehended on Wildcat Lake Road, deputies discover the man burglarized a gas station earlier that day and was attempting to stash the goods at his girlfriend’s house.

Many of us hear stories like this burglary scenario and how police manage to capture criminals, but what happens to them once they’re arrested and hauled off to Kitsap County Jail?

While many of us don’t know what life is like behind bars, there are currently about 430 men and women who call Kitsap County Jail home. While some folks have spent time in the Port Orchard jail, few of us really know what life is like as a Kitsap County inmate.

Jail intake

and booking

After sheriff’s deputies escort the Silverdale burglar to Port Orchard, they pull up to the sally port, a large garage area. A corrections officer comes across the intercom and asks “what you got?” The deputy tells the officer if they have a male or female prisoner and back their patrol car into the sally port and close the doors.

Deputy Scott Wilson, Kitsap County Sheriff’s Office spokesman, said the sally port is an extremely secure area because “the academy teaches you the closer you get to incarceration, the crazier they (inmates) get.”

The deputy takes the soon-to-be Kitsap County Jail inmate out of the car and searches him or her for weapons and other items.

“Everyone is patted down on camera then taken up top,” said Sgt. Sauni Holt.

The deputy then secures his or her gun and takes the elevator upstairs to the jail and booking area. Corrections officers and deputies are not allowed to carry guns in the jail, only handcuffs, pepper spray and a Taser. The Silverdale burglar is then told to put his forehead against a padded wall and is patted down once again by corrections officers. The officers collect his belongings and place them in plastic bags for safe keeping.

“You’re getting searched at least twice here,” Wilson said.

Officers then place the person in one of six holding cells to await booking. Some criminals get creative and use their fingernails to scratch drawings and words into the cells’ doors while waiting to start the booking process.

The booking process can take anywhere from 30 to 45 minutes. Booking officers ask the person numerous questions about themselves including health issues. If the person has an injury or condition that requires serious medical attention, he or she will be taken to the hospital, treated, then returned to Kitsap County Jail.

Once questioning is completed, it’s mug shot and fingerprinting time. The person smiles pretty for the camera and the officer takes photographs of all of the person’s tattoos and scars, which can take a while.

Wilson said the photographs of inmates and every scar and tattoo is helpful in the identification process. There are twins in North Kitsap who constantly say they are one another and the extra photographs help deputies distinguish between the two, Wilson said.

“It helps in the field identification process because believe it or not people lie to us in the field,” Wilson said.

The inmates scan their fingerprints onto a computer and within an hour, corrections officers know exactly who that person is if he or she has been arrested before.

“If they’ve been arrested in the state of Washington they’ll be on file,” Holt said.

Wilson said Bremerton police arrested a man for DUI one time and he used an alias. A corrections officer ran his fingerprints and discovered the man was wanted for murder in San Francisco.

“People had been looking for him for a while and found him here,” Wilson said.

After the inmate makes a few phone calls and can’t bail out of jail, “we’re going to get undressed,” Holt said.

An officer escorts the person into the property room where all inmates’ belongings are stored. The new inmate is issued an outfit, (green for general population, red for those who committed more serious crimes and go to lockdown,) shoes, underwear and socks. Inmates also receive a rule book for the jail, bed sheets and toiletries such as a toothbrush and shampoo. Inmates sleep on thin mattresses and do not get the luxury of pillows.

If the person came in with drugs or committed a Class A felony, he or she is strip-searched before putting on jail garb.

The money inmates possess when arriving to jail is put on an account so they can buy things at the jail’s commissary during their stay.

Inmates are then assigned to a cell and begin their stay at Kitsap County Jail.

Day-to-day life

The old jail consists of East, South and West Pods. East Pod is where the roughly 45 women who are currently in Kitsap County Jail live. Inmates’ cell doors are unlocked at 5:30 a.m. and they are free to roam around their pods. Inmates play cards, socialize with other inmates and watch television.

“This is basically what they do, watch TV and make a whole lot of phone calls,” Holt said. “They basically have time to mingle around.”

Jail staff control what the inmates watch on television and inmates’ have a phone card to make calls. All calls are recorded and can be recalled to use in a trial or other circumstances if necessary. Pod officers are assigned to each pod to keep an eye on the inmates. Mirrored glass surrounds each pod, so officers can watch inmates without the inmates seeing them.

Kitsap County Jail has single man cells and some double bunks. The small cells include a bed area, toilet and sink. A polished metal mirror takes the place of a glass mirror. The roughly 90 corrections officers check inmates’ cells for cleanliness daily and all inmates have an intercom button in their cells to communicate with officers if needed.

Holt said some inmates get creative and try to sneak things past the corrections staff. Holt said she was doing rounds one day and gently kicked an inmate’s toilet and it was loose from the wall. She pulled the toilet out of the way and the man had made “pruno,” a jail alcohol, and stashed it behind the toilet. He used toothpaste on the back of the toilet to make it resemble grout.

“They’re really hard on items because it’s not their stuff,” Holt said. “You have to really be on top of it.”

Inmates get limited amounts of time in the recreation yards to get fresh air. The rec yards used to have basketball hoops, but the inmates played too rough and kept getting hurt, so the hoops were taken down.

Inmates are fed three meals a day and a medical staff is on hand daily to administer medications. Mental health professionals also work with inmates at the jail.

“We deal with a lot of mental health issues now at the jail,” Holt said.

General population inmates are locked back into their cells at 10 p.m. and begin the day again at 5:30 a.m. the next day.

Lockdown and ‘commitments’

South Pod is where inmates are housed in lockdown. These inmates are only allowed out of their cells one hour a day and have no television and limited books and items inside their cells. Officers slide food trays through cell slots to feed the inmates because some people in lockdown are hostile.

“Sometimes we get people in here who are pretty combative and we don’t want our staff dealing with that,” Holt said.

Corrections officers check on inmates in lockdown frequently and monitor things from one of two control rooms in the jail.

“Officers come through these units every 60 minutes to make sure everybody is OK,” Holt said.

There is one control room in the old jail and one in the new section of the jail which opened in 2004. The Central Pod is part of the new jail. A couple of officers watch numerous monitors from the control rooms and can cut power and lock doors if needed from the large, dark room.

“Our cameras record any movement going on,” Holt said. “If there’s no movement, there’s no recording.”

“Commitments” are inmates who are serving time at Kitsap County Jail. Anyone charged with a felony and sentenced to more than a year in prison is shipped off to the women’s prison in Purdy or the men’s prison in Clallam Bay. Many “commitments” at Kitsap County Jail are housed in the dorm. These inmates do not have cells, they sleep in bunk beds in a large, open room where officers can easily keep an eye on everyone.

Holt said there are not many inmates serving time at the jail, but “the majority of people … are awaiting trial.”

Inmate workers

Some inmates are given the opportunity to work in the jail. Many work in the laundry facility, but the most heavily sought after job is in the kitchen.

“Everyone wants to work there,” Wilson said.

Inmate workers prepare all of the meals at Kitsap County Jail. Crews of eight inmates at a time don white outfits and cook meals. With the radio blaring, the workers socialize, bake their own bread and assist the cooks with meals.

“Just giving them something to do is huge,” Holt said.

Inmate workers are housed together at the jail and get a few perks for good behavior. They are allowed coffee in their pod, have a movie night once a week and their rec yard is unlocked all day.

Visitation, trial and release

Inmates are allowed to speak with a visitor for 30 minutes a week. The inmate and his or her guest talk to one another through talk-around glass. The jail used to have phones, but sometimes conversations between inmates and visitors became heated and the phones would be beaten against the wall or glass, so they were removed and talk-around glass was installed.

When inmates are cuffed together and led down the long hallway to stand before a judge, Holt said officers have to be on guard. Inmates are given instructions before being taken out into the public forum of a courtroom and officers must be on their toes in case an inmate gets out of line.

“Court officers have to be pretty security-minded when moving inmates,” Holt said.

When the time comes for an inmate to leave the jail, officers give the person his or her personal belongings back and are checked out of Kitsap County Jail. The process can take a while, so the inmate’s family and friends shouldn’t expect him or her to be released right away, Wilson said.

The inmate is then sent on a one-way elevator trip down to freedom, hopefully to never return to the Port Orchard facility again.