King County operates two adult jails: one in Downtown Seattle and one in Kent. Full staffing at the two facilities requires 503 corrections officers.
The lengthy waitlist at the state Criminal Justice Training Commission’s (CJTC) mandatory academy is not the only factor in the King County Department of Adult and Juvenile Detention’s hiring challenges, but King County Prosecuting Attorney Leesa Manion called it a “choke point” for getting new corrections officers on the job.
That description comes from a letter Manion sent to the Washington Attorney General in November asking for an analysis of whether counties have the legal authority to run their own corrections officer training. Attorney General Bob
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