Washington’s attempt to establish independent statewide oversight of local jails ended without passage after Senate Bill 5005 was narrowed and then stalled in the state Legislature, according to the bill’s sponsor and oversight experts.
The measure would have created a statewide body to oversee jails, but a substitute version removed most references to “oversight” and scaled back the strongest accountability provisions, the Associated Press reported. Saldaña, a Seattle Democrat and the bill’s chief sponsor, said the bill’s latest version was “as skinny as it gets,” adding it was still a step toward an independent body to oversee local jails amid what she described as severe harm inside facilities.
Saldaña and advocates pointed to repeated deaths in Washington jails, including people who died during fights or after being injured by guards, those who died while experiencing severe opioid withdrawal symptoms, and those who died by suicide after not receiving adequate prevention measures. The reporting also cited cases highlighted by InvestigateWest involving people who died in the Okanogan County Jail as they detoxed from opioids, saying the state lacked minimum care standards for opioid overdose and suicide prevention. Nearly 80% of people held in Washington jails were awaiting trial, and datashows cited in the report found that many reported mental or physical health conditions.
Michele Deitch, an incarceration oversight expert who directs the University of Texas Prison and Jail Innovation Lab, said Washington is “very much in the minority” in its lack of oversight. She argued that functional oversight requires independence and enforcement responsibilities, rather than a body limited to producing reports.
The bill’s treatment of “oversight” changed sharply during the process. Before it was modified, Senate Bill 5005 included the word “oversight” 17 times, the reporting said. In the substitute version, “oversight” appeared only once—when naming a proposed “health oversight agency” for record-access purposes—and the substitute also removed a requirement that jails be inspected every three years. The ultimate amended plan removed mandatory inspection requirements and instead created a “jail council” to study jail issues, with language aimed at promoting transparency and reducing exposure to litigation.
The bill faced opposition from law enforcement groups and local officials. Groups such as the Association of Counties told lawmakers in January 2025, when the bill was first introduced, that they did not necessarily oppose the bill’s goals but said its provisions were “overly burdensome.” The Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs also expressed opposition, with testimony saying the group did not oppose establishing some statewide standards but objected to how SB 5005 would reach its aims. James McMahan, the policy director for WASPC, testified in January 2025 that “We want the people in our jails to be well, we want to be part of that solution, this, in our view, is not the way to do it.”
WASPC later described its position through an outline of legislative priorities that include statewide minimum care standards and state funding support for local governments, according to the reporting. In a written statement to InvestigateWest, WASPC Executive Director Steven D. Strachan said the group supports safety in jails through standards and assistance based on best practices, statutes and court decisions, and he said the voluntary standards it supports are similar to those of organizations such as the American Correctional Association and the National Commission on Correctional Health Care.
Deitch said advocates removed key features from the bill’s original oversight approach, including the inspection-linked transparency that would have made independent review concrete rather than optional. She said that kind of oversight body should have authority to enforce requirements tied to the rights, concerns and needs of people incarcerated in the facilities it oversees. Deitch also cited her consultation with a Washington Joint Legislative Task Force on Jail Standards formed in 2023 and said it produced a report on the issue.
Historical context shaped the debate. Saldaña said Washington previously had statewide jail oversight through a corrections standards board that inspected jails on a yearly basis and enforced standards established by the Legislature in 1979. In 1987, lawmakers dissolved the board, she said, and left the establishment of standards to counties and cities. The reporting said an Attorney General’s office request for jail standards for a 2023 legislative report found that only 10 of 50 adult jail facilities had produced standards, and that seven of those did so before 1995. The reporting also said some jails acknowledged they had no formal standards or could not locate them.
Advocates tied the push for statewide standards to both public safety and legal exposure for local governments. Gabriel Galanda, an Indigenous rights attorney in Seattle whose firm represents families of women who died in the Okanogan County Jail and others, said the bill’s backers argued for jail reform in a way that reduces state liability, while he also said families want requirements rather than discretionary practices. Deitch said enforcement-linked oversight could reduce the litigation risk localities face.
The reporting also described ongoing costs from lawsuits related to deaths in jails. In January, it said Kitsap County and its jail medical provider, NaphCare, agreed to pay $2.75 million to the family of Nicholas Rapp, who died by suicide in the Kitsap County Jail in 2020. It also said NaphCare recently pulled out of several Washington jails, citing “unreasonably large civil verdicts” among other factors. Joleen McKinney, the mother of a Colville woman, LaCrisha Cate, who died in the Okanogan County jail in 2023, said she wanted a law people could hold facilities to rather than a situation where deaths go unaddressed.
Funding concerns also came up in the bill’s final months. Saldaña said the estimated cost of almost $9 million was a barrier given Washington’s growing budget deficit, and she said counties also cited the expense of altering jail facilities to meet any new requirements. She said conversations with county officials and law enforcement continued, alongside talks with family members and people most affected by incarceration, and that she planned to leave office after the term ends and return to county-level work.
This story was originally published by InvestigateWest and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.