The Governor and State Legislature of Washington State recently authorized 180 million taxpayer dollars to build a new 1280 bed prison. When that prison comes on line it will cost at least 46 million dollars a year to run ($100 per bed per night). Without inflation or interest on public debt, the state will easily spend 1 billion dollars on this project in the next twenty years.

The object we are striving for through this collaborative is not so much to oppose and defeat the building of this new prison, but to construct an alternative to the mindset and political environment that limits the creativity of policy makers, and to resolve the states prison issues with more value added, forward looking and humanity/community affirming models.

This is not an idealistic treatise. The partners who are contibuting to this document are deeply experienced with the realities faced by the incarcerated, previously incarcerated and at risk populations. The ideas and policy proposals within this evolving document, though sometimes visionary, are reality based and gleaned from decades of collective experience and research.