Boundary welcomes new detention deputies

BONNERS FERRY — Boundary County Sherriff’s have two new detention officers, Ryan Wright and Ryan Hoskin. They will work to help maintain the detention center and provide compassionate service for the community.

Wright grew up around law enforcement with family members involved in some capacity, including his father.

He eventually began working as a real estate agent. He has an educational background in sign language, but there isn’t much opportunity for that field. Still, he reflected on his passion for working in law enforcement and began pursuing the field.

Hoskin also has many family members in law enforcement comprised of a chief, deputies and other related law enforcement positions.

“That pushed me and wanting to server the community and people,” Hoskin said.

According to Wright, the Idaho post academy for detention is five weeks and two days long and consists of physical training and eight-hour days of course work.

Some of the classes taught are laws of arrest, jail liability, con games, jail standards and potentially what kind of drugs you might see snuck in jail.

Defensive tactic training is also emphasized from perfecting a cuffing technique, responses to attacks and on the floor brawling to control and survive such encounters.

“Those are brutal days,” Wright said, “I had bruises all over the place and muscles fatigued to the max but it was great.”

According to Sheriff Dave Kramer, the jobs are tricky because you have to be compassionate, keep inmates safe, prevent contraband from coming in, and potentially deal with people coming in who are still high, aggressive, and adrenaline-pumping inmates.

“They have to try to de-escalate [situations] and keep other inmates safe,” Kramer said.

The jail is currently close to total capacity and potentially will increase because of the relaxing COVID-19 restrictions where more people are traveling and visiting Boundary.

The job becomes more challenging at a smaller detention center, protecting inmates and mitigating disputes.

“We not only need to take care of them and monitor them but in some point of time exhausting other means has to defend them or defend ourselves against them,” Wright said, “It can be very complex and complicated having to distinguish what tools needed at the time.”

According to Kramer, he has requested an additional detention deputy for the facility to ensure at minimum two detention officers at any time being at the detention center to ensure the safety of those at the jail.

Additionally, Kramer believes that the position is essential because detention deputies can positively impact the booking of inmates as they interact with inmates daily and can encourage positive change.

Many times detention officers work with transporting inmates to mental health facilities in Orofino, extradition teams, a backup bailiff or being on call to work at the detention facility.

“There’s a lot of moving pieces and a lot of them can happen at once, and they do a very good job at that,” Kramer said.