Anti-Crime Bills Face Hard Time Senate Fears Cost Of Jailing Sex Offenders, Minors Longer

The Republican House’s election-year attack on sex- and juvenile-crime got its first hard look by Senate Democrats on Monday, and they were most impressed - spooked might be the word - by the price tag.

The Senate Law and Justice Committee, and especially Chairman Adam Smith, was most critical of a measure to automatically send to adult courts and prisons hundreds of first-time juvenile offenders who commit serious crimes.

The measure, HB2219 sponsored by House Majority Leader Dale Foreman, would cost the state $34.77 million over the next five years, and would cost the counties a total of about $14 million in the same time period.

“It may not be possible to adequately fund this legislation,” said Kitsap County Superior Court Judge Leonard Costello. Speaking for the Superior Court bench, Costello said it might be wise to approve pieces of the measure and drop the rest for lack of money.

Kurt Sharar, a lobbyist of the Washington State Association of Counties, said local taxpayers could not afford the measure without a permanent guarantee of state help.

“To not give that guarantee would be to impose an unfunded mandate on the counties,” Smith, D-Seatac, added.

The measure is given little chance of surviving in anything close to its current form once it reaches the Senate Ways and Means Committee, which is seeking ways to squeeze the $17.6 billion two-year budget to accommodate rising demands from social services, public schools and higher education.

Given a much better chance is HB2320, a measure that would lock up for life two-time sex offenders who preyed on adults.

The bill has an estimated fiscal impact of just over $50,000 in the next five years. It would cause a relatively small rise in prison populations - about 66 more inmates over 20 years, according to an analysis by the governor’s Office of Financial Management.

Sponsor Rep. Ida Ballasiotes, R-Mercer Island, said she was optimistic the bill would pass the Legislature.

Another of her bills, though, faces serious resistance in the Senate.

HB2225, which would greatly increase sentences for first-time sex offenders who prey on both adults and children, would cost just $1.8 million in the next five years, but would rapidly increase prison costs in following years. In 10 years, it would mean 533 more prisoners and in 20 years, 1,594 more, OFM estimates.

At a time of tight money and a voter-mandated spending limit, “The cost of some of this stuff could be a real problem,” Smith said.