Snohomish County jail posts inmate register online

Times Snohomish County bureau

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The site is updated every hour with inmates' names, charges and bail amounts. It was one of jail director Steve Thompson's first priorities when he started in the county in July. The site was posted in August.

The list contains everyone who is being held in the jail, usually between 500 and 600 inmates.

Cities can check the site to see who is being held on their warrants, which helps them get inmates into court faster and saves them incarceration costs, Thompson said. Just how much the cities would save is unknown.

It's an "opportune time" for the county to save cities money, Thompson said, because next year the county will probably have to raise the rates it charges cities to hold their inmates. The county jail is short on money because voters turned down a sales-tax increase last spring that would have paid for operation of a new jail.

Besides helping cities, the service should cut down on the number of calls jail employees field every day from the public asking who's in jail, Thompson said.

"If your kid hasn't come home for three days, it's a nice service," he said.

To visit the site, go to www.co.snohomish.wa.us/jail/index.htm and click on "daily jail register."

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