Seattle’s ‘stay out’ zones for drug arrests go mostly unused

SEATTLE – Seattle lawmakers last year made a late push to expand the city’s ability to crack down on misdemeanor crime and disorder in commercial areas – setting up six “stay out” zones for those arrested on drug-related offenses and expanding the number of jail beds available for Seattle-based bookings.

But three months later, those efforts have gone largely unused. As the average number of people held on misdemeanor charges in the jail has crept up only slightly, the “stay out” law has been invoked by a judge just once since it took effect in October.

The minimal use of the new tool stands in contrast to the urgency with which city officials passed the bill in the first place. After introducing the ordinance in August, City Hall signed off on the zones just over a month later – lightning quick in the context of the typically plodding pace of legislating and at a time of year when new lawmaking typically slows.

City Attorney Ann Davison and Council President Sara Nelson, who both pushed for the zones’ approval, framed their creation as a tool for disrupting disorder and persistent drug-related activity in highly trafficked parts of the city.

While some opponents saw the zones as ineffective and inhumane, there was also the question of whether the city’s scarce law enforcement resources would be dedicated to arresting and processing those in the drug trade.

So far, the answer is largely no. While drug arrests in all of 2024 are up from 2023, they have not meaningfully increased since the zones were established, according to police department data. At the same time, Seattle is also not coming close to using its full allotment of beds in the downtown jail, even after city officials negotiated a higher number last fall.

As a result, prosecutors are not fielding the sorts of cases that might warrant a stay-out order.

Davison declined multiple interview requests. In a statement, she said, “The SODA ordinance is new legislation and, as with many new initiatives, it takes time to train officers on new ordinances and to operationalize. My office reviews those cases referred to us by Seattle Police. When we have sufficient evidence we will file the case in Seattle Municipal Court.”

Council member Bob Kettle, who chairs the council’s public safety committee, framed the new zones as just one small piece of a broader public safety effort by the council and said he expected its use to ramp up over the next year.

“But the key thing here is, in order to have increased numbers, you have to have increased numbers of officers on the streets doing it,” he said.

Seattle’s new law allows municipal court judges to bar people from six areas around the city, even before they’ve been formally convicted, and likely as a condition of being released before trial. The zones are in Belltown, Downtown, Pioneer Square, Chinatown International District, Capitol Hill and the University District.

Police are authorized to arrest someone found in the designated area where they have been banned – with some exceptions for transit and social services.

Seattle used stay-out zones before they were curtailed by City Hall in 2010 and are in use in several cities around Washington.

Their return to Seattle was among the most significant piece of public safety-related legislation passed by the new City Council last year and solidified the shift away from the politics of the early 2020s, when City Hall was critical of traditional law enforcement.

“We need to be providing mechanisms that all actors in this public safety space can (use to) help disrupt criminal enterprises that has taken hold in locations that are too established in our city,” Davison said at the time.

Progressive pushback against the zones was swift and continues today.

“What they ultimately do is stigmatize individuals who are struggling with substance use disorder or engaging in sex work,” said Jazmyn Clark, a policy director with the ACLU of Washington.

On a broader level was the question of their efficacy.

Matt Sanders, interim director of the King County Department of Public Defense, said he believes the limited use of the zones is a reflection of their limited ability to improve public safety.

As the council was deliberating the zones, “we emphasized that dedicating Seattle’s scarce police resources to enforcing these ineffective orders would be wasteful and counterproductive,” he said.

Former King County Prosecutor Dan Satterberg saw stay out zones come in and out of use in cycles over his 35 years in the public sphere. They were appealing as a tool for officers to give certain parts of the city some relief from chronic offenders.

But there was a reason they’d slowly fade out again – priorities.

“While we tried it a half a dozen times in 30 years, it was never sustained because it just took too many resources and couldn’t compete with the more serious, violent cases,” he said.

Satterberg allowed that his skepticism doesn’t mean today’s officials can’t make them work. But, he said, “It is certainly asking the police do a lot when they’re already highly understaffed.”

The mayor’s office, for its part, has flooded downtown with a heavy law enforcement presence, added lighting, dispatched outreach workers and conducted deep cleans of the streets, in addition to making targeted arrests.

The approach “recognizes that not every person is committing a crime and is going to be arrested,” said spokesperson Callie Craighead, “nor is every person in need going to accept shelter, treatment, or services.”

Jon Scholes, President and CEO of the Downtown Seattle Association, lobbied the council to pass the SODA law. Downtown has quieted significantly in recent months, he said. Even if that wasn’t the direct result of the new law, he said it nevertheless serves as a valuable deterrent as well as a good option for law enforcement should they need it.

“We still believe that the public safety sector should have a range of tools and interventions and additional resources, and that’s a good thing,” he said.

The one order granted so far was against a woman whom police arrested for smoking fentanyl near the QFC on Capitol Hill in December. Prosecutors asked she be barred from the roughly 25 blocks between Harvard and 11th avenues, and Union and Thomas streets. Her defense team tried to argue the order would be unconstitutional, but Judge Damon Shadid said that question had already been tested and was not for the Seattle Municipal Court to overturn. He approved the order.

As for Seattle’s beds in the downtown jail, Seattle officials pushed King County this fall to increase capacity for misdemeanor arrests to 135 – up from the limited number of 70 to 80 available since the beginning of the pandemic.

Nelson and Davison argued lifting the limits was key to their ability to fight disorder and repeat crime, particularly in commercial areas of the city.

So far, however, the average daily population of Seattle-based misdemeanor arrests in the jail has stayed relatively flat. Out of the 135 now available, 84 were filled per night in December on average, according to Noah Haglund, spokesperson for the jail – only slightly more than the average of 76 from December 2023 and about equal to the monthly average for all of 2024.

Nelson declined interview requests about the SODA zones and jail capacity, deferring questions to Davison, who also declined to comment on jail capacity.

A spokesperson for the Seattle Police Department said the explanation was straightforward.

“Suspects only get booked into jail if they’ve committed crimes. And suspects are released daily when they make bail,” said Det. Eric Muñoz.

For some, adding jail beds was never about filling them every night. Lisa Daugaard, co-director of nonprofit Purpose Dignity Action, which provides case management and arrest alternatives, said the beds exist as an option when all other paths may be worse.

For Kettle, “I’ve always said, hey, if we can divert seven or eight out of 10, I’m OK with that,” he said. “It’s just that one or two or three that need to go into the system.”