Right Size Jail

We express appreciation to Council Member Todd Donovan, a lone voice of conscience who abstained from the final vote for a rushed and deeply flawed proposal that rejected most of our proposed amendments and did not wait for a follow-up study exploring the failure to address the drivers of incarceration (98% pretrial detention, 6-to-1 ratios of incarceration of Black and Indigenous persons, homelessness) that help make Whatcom's incarceration rate five times higher than in British Columbia over the border, and higher than Russia's!

Whatcom jail measure heads to November ballot County council sought balance between rehabilitation, incarceration

"The big liberal idea is to send in teams of social workers instead, and there’s some big news on that out of Denver: Namely, it works. For the first time, researchers have found on-the-ground proof that an alternative response team, with no cops along, can tangibly reduce crime.

Stanford researchers looked at a handful of Denver’s police precincts both before and after the city began using vans of mental health specialists and paramedics to respond to some 911 calls in parts of downtown.

The rules were that the STAR teams (Support Team Assisted Response) could only answer calls such as public intoxication, person down, trespassing and public disorder. If there was any violence or weapons present, cops would go.

What happened is that less-serious crime in the targeted precincts went down 34%. It wasn’t just petty crime. A whole host of crimes that the team wasn’t even allowed to respond to — simple misdemeanor assault, for example — also went down.

In the study period, the teams answered 750 calls. But 1,400 fewer crimes were reported than in the six months prior (corrected for seasonality and other factors). This was the combination both of the teams not writing up anybody for crimes, but also a follow-on effect of preventing further crimes by diverting people to help, the researchers found.

“The evidence in this study indicates that the STAR program was … effective in reducing the designation of individuals in crisis as criminal offenders, and reducing the actual level of crime,” the study found (emphasis added)."

Seattle needs therapy to get past defund the police A new study in Denver finds alternatives to police really do cut crime. A comparison between Seattle and Denver suggests our 2020 wounds may still be too raw, writes columnist Danny Westneat.

Friday Harbor security camera footage showed he never touched the bikes he was accused of stealing by a sheriff's deputy with a history of inaccurate reporting. The prosecutor failed to disclose this to his attorney as required by law. Although a jury eventually acquitted him, the public no longer patronized his auto repair business because he was an accused thief. Driven out of business, he and his partner are homeless. There are no consequences for the local prosecutor who broke the law.

WA prosecutors who withhold evidence rarely face discipline | Crosscut Legally and ethically, prosecutors are required to turn over evidence — even when it could hurt their case. Those who don’t, however, face few consequences.