TACOMA, Wash. (AP) — The cost of locking up sexually violent felons on an island is growing, and state lawmakers of both parties say the Special Commitment Center might need to move to the mainland.
The News Tribune of Tacoma reports (http://bit.ly/t6OQ5D ) the mental-health treatment facility for sex offenders had shared McNeil Island with a prison, but budget cuts shuttered the prison in April.
But nobody is clamoring to have nearly 300 sex offenders in their backyard.
Opposition has built in the Centralia area to housing them at the shuttered Maple Lane School, a juvenile detention facility in Grand Mound. Another choice, Western State Hospital, may not be well-received either.
The remote island location adds $6.6 million a year to the center’s costs.
