 |
| Times-News (Twin Falls, Idaho) October 15, 1972 |
Secretary
In January 1972, Sleep took her commitment to reforming
the state’s penal system beyond the Idaho Commission on Women’s Programs when she agreed to serve on a new
citizens’ committee, the Idaho Committee on Crime and Delinquency. The group, according to an article in the February 4 edition of the Spokane Chronicle, was created to develop "positive citizen
involvement in all phases of prevention, treatment and control of crime and
delinquency in the state of Idaho.” The foremost concern of the group,
according to an article in the February 4, 1972, edition of the Idaho
Statesman, was the “impending move” of the Idaho Penitentiary to a new
location near Boise. Conditions in city and county jails and the establishment
of regional jails also interested the group, which elected Sleep its secretary.
(Spokane Chronicle, February 4, 1971, p. 15; Idaho Statesman, February 4, 1972, p. 20)
Sleep was not alone in supporting the concept of
regional jails. According to an article in the January 9, 1972, edition of the
Twin Falls Times-News, Raymond May, director of the Idaho Department of
Corrections, favored regional “correctional houses” as “the first step in a
future statewide program aimed at resocializing offenders.” Regional jails, he
said, would be known as “penal complexes” and would offer “intensive
diagnostic, testing and counseling devices and treatment accordingly.” Such an
approach, May added, would save taxpayers money in the long term because it
would significantly discourage recidivism. (Times-News, January 9, 1972,
p. 27)
The Idaho Law Enforcement Planning Commission was so
enthusiastic about the concept that it went forward with plans to construct a
regional facility in Wallace, Shoshone County, to serve the five northern
counties. Much of the funding for the project came from a grant from the Law
Enforcement Assistance Administration, according to the January 9 Times-News
article. Work on the complex was completed in 1972, and in January 1973, the
Idaho Legislature tied up a loose end when it passed legislation granting Idaho district judges the authority “to sentence a person found guilty” in
their courts “to any jail within his judicial district.” A previous law had
required district judges to sentence a convicted person “to a jail within the
county in which he was convicted.” (Idaho Statesman, January 28, 1973,
p. 19)
As avid as were its supporters, and as sound as the
concept appeared to be in theory, reality seems to have been the final judge.
An exact history of the regional jail in Wallace is beyond the scope of this
profile, but accounts in Idaho newspapers reveal that the experiment did not
succeed. The Coeur d’Alene Press, for example, reported in its March 27,
1978, edition that Kootenai County officials were so concerned about the cost
of transporting prisoners to the Shoshone County jail and keeping them there, that they were “considering
borrowing money to finance a new county administrative facility that would
include a jail.” In addition, an article in the January 17, 1979, edition,
of the Times-News quotes Everett Ward, Chair of the Lincoln County Commission, as
saying that while the “regional jail didn’t work up north,” it might in his
part of the state. The article also reported that the Wallace regional jail “is
now seldom used, according to state officials.” (Coeur d’Alene Press, March 27, 1978, p. 1; Times-News, January 17, 1979, p. 11)
Chair Redux
Sleep returned to Boise in May for a meeting of the Idaho
Commission on Women’s Programs. There, according to an article in the May 17
edition of Burley’s South Idaho Press, she reported on her task force’s
inspection of “several North Idaho jails” and informed the Commissioners that
plans were underway “to make inspections and hold meetings with law enforcement
officers and other community leaders in sections of southern Idaho” in the
months ahead. As a result of Sleep’s report, the Commission recommended that an
“executive order calling for unannounced inspection of jails in Idaho by the
Department of Health” be issued. (South Idaho Press, May 17, 1972, p.
13)
Sleep presented the findings of the task force’s survey
of southern Idaho jails at the Commission’s October meeting. Some of the jails
the task force inspected, she is quoted as saying in an article in the October
15 edition of the Times-News, were “sparsely equipped at best.” Sleep
also “proposed an all-inclusive penal reform package for delivery to the
legislature in January” and reiterated her support of regional jails. After
their review of her report, the Commissioners called for several reforms, including
“home furlough for inmates, more women filling law enforcement slots, better
nutrition for prisoners and more emphasis on vocational training for
rehabilitation.” In 1973, when the Commissioners identified their priorities,
they did not renew Sleep's task force, nor did Governor Cecil
Andrus reappoint her to the Commission. (Times-News, October 15, 1972,
p. 9)
 |
On behalf of the Sandpoint Civic Club, President Sleep
presents Sandpoint mayor Lester Brown with a check for $100
in support of a civic improvement project,
Sandpoint News-Bulletin, March 15, 1973 |
Bonner County Citizen
Frances Olga Hamilton Sleep turned 70 years old on August 22,
1973, and while she remained as civic-minded as ever in the remaining years of
the decade, she focused less on state and national issues and more on those in
her own backyard. In May 1973, for example, the members of the Sandpoint Civic Club,
one of the oldest women’s organizations in Bonner County, elected
Sleep to a second consecutive term as president. Among the many civic
improvements the Club financed over the decades were hardwood floors for Sandpoint’s
historic Community
Hall, upgraded lighting and signage for the city’s streets, and fireplaces
for City
Beach. In 1966, the Club was recognized for organizing a city-wide improvement campaign
that earned Sandpoint a Distinguished Achievement Award in the National
Cleanest Town Contest sponsored by the National Clean-up, Paint-up, Fix-up
Bureau of Washington, D.C.
 |
| Spokesman-Review, May 21, 1972 |
Through her writing, Sleep not only helped improve Bonner County’s built
landscape but its natural one as well. Her article about Priest River’s International Sled Dog Race, for
example, was published in the Winter 1971-1972 edition of Incredible Idaho,
the magazine of the Idaho Department of Commerce and Development. The Spring
1973 edition of the magazine included her coverage of Priest Lake’s spring flotilla of “stately
cruisers” and “sprightly outboard runabouts.” In addition to magazine writing,
she covered Bonner County news and events for the Spokane Chronicle and
the Spokesman-Review during the first part of the 1970s, and for the
Sandpoint papers, during the latter part of the decade and throughout the 1980s. (Sandpoint
News-Bulletin, January 18, 1984, p. 17; Incredible Idaho, Spring
1973, p. 5)
 |
| Spokane Chronicle, April 21, 1975 |
An example of the newspaper features Sleep wrote is the
one published in the June 3, 1977, edition of the Sandpoint Daily Bee.
“It was a frosty, early April morning 1975,” she begins. “A south wind was
blowing in a drizzle of rain that was melting the last of winter snow. It was
cold. A disturbance at the back door proved to be…not one or even just
two...but FIVE baby brothers and sisters…little black Lab puppies barely old enough
to leave their mother.” The back door, as it turns out, was Sleep’s, and as she
watched the pups wolf down an impromptu meal of bread and milk, she “wondered
how could any human be so heartless, so thoughtless of suffering.” (Sandpoint
Daily Bee, June 3, 1977, p. 28)
As Sleep later learned, her experience was not unique;
many of her friends and acquaintances had had “similar incidents and some had
even sadder stories to tell.” It was clear, she writes in the article, there
was an “urgent need” in Bonner County for an animal shelter. Although she did
not specify who was responsible, a notice was put in the papers for a meeting
“to discuss the formation of the Bonner County Humane Society.” Over 30 people
attended the meeting, and each one, Sleep explains, not only “had a story of
animal abuse to tell” but also “wanted something done and was willing to get
something started.” Six months later, the Bonner County Humane Society was
charted as a nonprofit Idaho corporation. (That Sleep was the person who placed
the notice seems certain, as she was elected the new organization’s first
president, and its initial meetings were held in her home.) (Sandpoint Daily
Bee, June 3, 1977, p. 28)
End of Life
Frances Sleep died February 25, 1994, age 90, in Sandpoint. She was survived by son Richard and his wife Opal, as well as many grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and two great-great grandchildren. Husband William and son Robert had preceded her in death. Sleep is buried in Bonner County's Pinecrest Memorial Park. In 2001, Women Honoring Women, a local community organization, posthumously honored Sleep as one of Bonner County’s Women of Wisdom.
Comments
Post a Comment