Thurston County’s ARC might have a new name, but you still don’t want to end up there

You might call it the county jail or a correctional facility. But have you ever called it the Thurston County Accountability and Restitution Center, or ARC?

Probably not, and that’s why the Thurston County Commissioners unanimously voted Tuesday to change the 110,000-square-foot facility’s name to something that clarifies its mission: the Thurston County Corrections Facility.

The name change was requested by the Thurston County Sheriff’s Office, which runs the 488-bed jail.

“The Sheriff’s Office has found that the name of the facility can be confusing to the public, since it is not a widely familiar term for describing the building’s purpose,” Martin Casey, director of Central Services, wrote in an agenda summary for the board.

During the meeting, commissioner John Hutchings said he supported the name change because Accountability and Restitution Center sounds like a budgetary or finance institution that helps people resolve debt.

When the ARC — uh, make that the TCCF — was being planned, officials said its focus would be on assessing inmates as they are booked to see if they qualify for diversion into treatment programs instead of jail time, according to a 2005 Olympian story.

The jail in the Mottman Industrial Park was completed in October 2010 and immediately mothballed because of the county’s budget woes. It opened on Aug. 15, 2015.

Now county officials are working on an expansion project for the jail to help relieve overcrowding and save money that’s now being used to house inmates in other counties.

This story was originally published August 29, 2017 at 5:08 PM with the headline "Thurston County’s ARC might have a new name, but you still don’t want to end up there."