wa-law.org > bill > 2025-26 > SB 6085 > Original Bill
The legislature recognizes that providing incarcerated individuals with meaningful opportunities for personal enrichment, family visitation and contact, recreation, and related activities supports rehabilitation and prosocial behavior and contributes to institutional safety and well-being. The legislature further recognizes the importance of ensuring that expenditures from the institutional welfare account are informed by the lived experiences and real-time needs of incarcerated individuals.
Accordingly, the legislature intends to formalize a collaborative process among the department of corrections and the incarcerated individuals served by the institutional welfare account. To promote equitable and informed decision making, the legislature further finds that community and affinity groups comprised of currently incarcerated individuals should be consulted to the greatest extent practicable.
The legislature intends for the department of corrections to make reasonable efforts to establish and maintain an ongoing feedback loop among incarcerated individuals, their families, and the department regarding the availability and quality of goods, services, and programs at correctional institutions managed by the department.
The institutional welfare account is created in the state treasury. Moneys in the account may be spent only after appropriation. The account shall consist of all moneys in the incarcerated individual betterment fund held by the department as of July 1, 2025, any revenue and receipts into the incarcerated individual betterment fund on or after July 1, 2025, and all receipts from legislative appropriations, donations, gifts, grants, and funds from federal or private sources. Expenditures from the account may be used only for the benefit of incarcerated individuals within the department. Such benefits include, but are not limited to, support for family visitation, prison visiting areas and extended family visit programs, family-centered activities, subscriptions, recreation and hobby expenditures, reentry services, and television system, phone, and computer communication expenditures.
The department shall develop a process for approving expenditures from the institutional welfare account that is informed by the real-time needs and lived experiences of incarcerated individuals and their families.
No funds received by the institutional welfare account may be used for the creation or maintenance of a law library.
The department shall make reasonable efforts to establish and maintain an ongoing feedback mechanism for incarcerated individuals and their families, including through the use of surveys or other methods, to gather information regarding the availability of, and need for, additional benefits as described in RCW 72.09.092. At a minimum, the department shall:
Provide regular opportunities for incarcerated individuals to submit feedback regarding the availability and quality of services, goods, and programs at the facility in which they are currently housed.
Provide family members of incarcerated individuals with opportunities to submit feedback regarding the visitation process and the availability and quality of services, goods, and programs at the facility in which the incarcerated individual is housed.
At least annually, survey known affinity groups comprised of currently incarcerated individuals to collect feedback regarding the availability and quality of services, goods, and programs at facilities managed by the department.
At least annually, the department shall compile and review all information collected pursuant to this subsection, including surveys and other feedback instruments, and shall prepare a report summarizing feedback from incarcerated individuals and their families and identifying high-priority expenditures from the institutional welfare account.
Beginning December 31, 2026, and every December 31st thereafter, the department must create a report and make it available on their public website detailing all expenditures from the institutional welfare account. The report shall include expenditure information on a facility-by-facility basis and a description of the process by which the department solicited feedback from incarcerated individuals and their families. The report must also include the information collected and summarized in subsection (2) of this section.