Jail General Information

There are two jails in Spokane County, the main jail behind the courthouse on the county courthouse campus, and the Geiger Corrections Center west of town near the airport.

The Work Release and Work Crew and Day Reporting programs are all located at the Geiger Corrections Center.  To be transferred to the Geiger facility requires the approval of both the judge and the jail.  The judge cannot order you to Geiger, if Geiger won’t accept you.

To learn whether a specific person is in jail, visit the Spokane County jail website.

Communicating with People in Jail (Mail, Phone Calls, and Money)

Mail

People in jail can send and receive mail, but the mail will be inspected by law enforcement before it is given to the inmate. Inmates mailing letters to the outside are required to pay for postage. Outgoing mail is also read and inspected.

Phone Calls

People in jail can make phone calls to the outside. The calls must be “collect,” to a land line (not to a cell phone). The calls can only be made at certain times, and inmates cannot always predict when they will have access to the phone. All phone calls (except to the Public Defender’s Office) are monitored by law enforcement.   If your phone does not accept collect calls from an inmate, you can sometimes get helpful information at 1-888-610-7079.

In some circumstances, cell phone owners can make a pre-payment to the jail’s phone company, and thus receive collect calls.

No one, including your attorney, is allowed to call in to people in jail.

Visiting Inmates

Inmate visiting is limited to a certain number of visits per week, at certain hours. Visitors must have valid identification, and must be on a list approved by the inmate (these limits to not apply to attorneys). To learn current visiting hours for the main courthouse jail call 477-2278. To learn visiting hours for Geiger, call 477-3259. You can learn more about visiting rules at the Spokane Sheriff’s Jail website.

Other Information

You can send reading material to inmates in jail if it is mailed directly from the publisher in the original package.

Inmates can purchase some things in jail, such as toiletries, candy, coffee or newspapers. (There is no smoking in the jail) You can leave money on the inmate’s books by going to the “booking window” in the jail lobby.

Please understand that if the inmate has received medical attention at the jail, the jail will confiscate 60% of the money you leave, until medical expenses are covered. If an inmate is released from jail still owing medical expenses, all of the money remaining in their jail account will be taken. Also, if an inmate is behind on court-ordered child support, the funds can be confiscated.

Finally, if the inmate is being sent from the Spokane jail to serve a longer sentence in the Department of Corrections (“DOC,” which is the state prison system) you may want to leave money on his / her  Spokane jail books, instead of waiting until the inmate gets to prison to mail funds. All the money remaining on a person’s jail books after medical expenses will be sent to prison with them, but if the same amount were mailed directly to DOC instead, the prison will take an additional percentage.

For more information about what an inmate being sent to prison can expect, see the DOC website.