Jails house offenders for up to a year, unless their trial drags on longer than that.

Prisons, on the other hand, house offenders for periods ranging from a year to life, however long that may take.

The Bremerton City Council’s move last week to enter the city into the running for a transitional holding facility was the right choice. However, that our state anticipates a boom in its population of incarcerated men is disturbing.

Those inmates would not be in the city — or the South Kitsap Industrial Area, or SKIA — for long. So fears about fugitives running through downtown desecrating public art are misplaced. Plus, the prospect of hundreds of corrections and construction jobs for the city and county is something the Council could not afford to ignore.

The best idea of all, however, would be to reduce demand for such facilities. As our Legislature debates how to spend scarce resources in the face of a gaping budget deficit, careful consideration should be made to how their decisions will either reduce, or increase, the need for buildings like these.