States in the Northwest lack laws ensuring the health and safety of people locked in county jails. Benewah County Jail, a small 16-bed facility in North Idaho, doesn’t have enough deputies to watch its detainees. In central Idaho’s Custer County, emergency dispatchers squeeze checks-ins of jail detainees between calls. To the south, in Twin Falls County, jail detainees wait weeks for needed medications, often never receiving them at all.