Yakima County’s Pre-Trial Plan Tabled, Too Costly

A plan to save money by letting criminals out early might not save any money at all. Our news partner KIMA Action News reports, the cost is triple what Yakima County originally expected.

The Law and Justice Committee learned the proposed pre-trial program would need $700,000 for start-up costs.

However, $120,000 requested by the Department of Assigned Counsel was removed from that total.

The program would have let low-risk offenders out early on supervision instead of paying to keep them in jail.

This new dollar amount doesn't save the money the county needs. Plans are now on hold indefinitely.

"We could have saved a lot of money with pretrial. Just not enough to get the commissioners to invest in it," said Yakima County Court Consultant Harold Delia.

Committee members are still looking to change jail booking standards and set new standards for bail.