Is Seattle’s initiative to drive down crime repeatable in Spokane?

An initiative focused on jailing repeat criminal offenders and collaborations among police, prosecutors and service providers has reduced property crime in Seattle, according to Seattle City Attorney Ann Davison.

The Downtown Spokane Partnership is intrigued by the successes of the “High Utilizer Initiative” Davison launched shortly after she took office in January 2022, and invited her to speak Thursday at the Steam Plant’s rooftop event space in downtown Spokane.

“We think it’s interesting, and if it’s effective and something that can help effectuate efficiencies in our community as well as focus on that collaborative piece and appropriate outcomes for individuals, then we think it’s definitely worth talking about,” said Elisabeth Hooker, vice president for marketing and programming at Downtown Spokane Partnership.

While Seattle’s initiative is focused more on the criminal justice side, Spokane’s is centered on case management services for people cycling among jail, emergency departments and shelters.

“What is unique about our approach is we’re working upstream to stabilize those individuals before there’s repeated contact with law enforcement,” said Maggie Yates, Spokane deputy city administrator.

Like in Spokane and other cities, a small number of people are committing a disproportionate amount of the crime in Seattle. Misdemeanor crime is 80% of all crime in Seattle.

Davison defined a “high utilizer” as someone who has 12 misdemeanor referrals in the past five years and at least one referral in the last eight months. The misdemeanors do not include domestic violence and DUI crimes, she said.

Davison, the only elected city attorney in Washington, said 118 people were responsible for over 2,400 police referrals to her office at the start of the initiative. A referral, or police report, includes at least one recommended charge, and Davison’s office decides if there’s enough evidence to proceed with the charge.

The initiative focuses on repeat offenders by reviewing their cases faster, making swifter charging decisions, coordinating with Seattle police to take action on active warrants, increasing coordination with the King County Prosecutor’s Office on filing or resolving felony cases, and collaborating with service providers to ensure offenders receive treatment and services, according to online initiative results provided by Davison’s office.

Davison said her office hadn’t coordinated much with the public safety sector and that data transparency also was limited before the initiative, which she said was not a “novel concept.”

“The part that was missing for us in Seattle was the coordination and the relevancy of the data on a regular basis,” Davison said. “And so once we put those pieces together, a program like this actually is instrumental in helping be a positive impact for public safety.”

Before the initiative, repeat offenders averaged 6.3 misdemeanor referrals per year to the city attorney’s office. That number dropped to 2.7 during the first year of the initiative.

She estimated the program reduced about 3,500 referrals since its launch.

Booking people into jail was a big reason for the initiative’s success.

The average King County Jail stay for a high utilizer is about 200 days, Davison said. Most misdemeanor defendants cannot be booked into the King County Jail because of booking restrictions, but the county made an exception for repeat offenders.

“The word on the street in Seattle was you can do this ’cause there’s really no consequence, and we literally did have defendants who would say that,” she told The Spokesman-Review.

The initiative also worked with service providers to coordinate services for offenders, including shelter and housing options after leaving jail and mandatory treatment programs in lieu of jail.

“While these efforts produced a handful of notable successes, the overall effort to get high utilizers to engage with services produced poor results,” according to first-year initiative results. “In particular, a significant number of individuals were released from jail to in-patient facilities for substance use disorders. In all but a few of those cases, the defendant absconded from the program within the first 24 hours.”

Davison said high-level repeat offenders, like those with dozens of referrals, should go to jail, where services should still be provided. She said determining why a repeat offender is committing crimes is still a priority.

“I’m looking to try to coordinate systems so we do have a visual of what’s happening for that person in a more wholistic view, but again also to say, if we think there has been a criminal act, we need to proceed on that to show there is going to be accountability for that,” Davison told The Spokesman-Review. “You cannot conduct yourself in that way because our laws need to matter and misdemeanor crimes actually do still matter.”

Meanwhile, the Spokane City Council nearly a year ago adopted Mayor Lisa Brown’s proposal to invest $1 million in opioid settlement funds toward two programs designed to help people struggling with substance abuse.

Half of the money went to the creation of a High Utilizer and Complex Care Initiative, including a contract with Consistent Care, a social services organization that provides case management services to people who rotate among jail, emergency rooms and shelters.

Consistent Care identifies people’s needs and addresses them rapidly, like a “social ICU,” Yates said.

She said the organization has been housing clients and enrolling them in inpatient and outpatient treatment. Consistent Care works closely with the downtown police precinct, municipal courts, community court and Spokane Regional Stabilization Center.

The other $500,000 went to the expansion of the Spokane Fire Department’s Community Assistance Response program, which provides ongoing case management services to reduce unnecessary use of emergency room visits.

Yates and City of Spokane spokeswoman Erin Hut said the city is conducting several similar interventions as Seattle’s initiative.

Just like in Seattle, Yates said participants who do not comply with conditions in community court are transferred to the traditional court docket.

Hut said Spokane is investing more on the front end, specifically case management services, than Seattle, so people don’t dive into a crime-riddled cycle.

Spokane City Councilman Michael Cathcart, who attended Davison’s talk Thursday, told The Spokesman-Review he brought forward an ordinance a few months ago that would establish a high utilizer program at Spokane Municipal Court. The program would focus attention on repeat offenders and mirrors Davison’s initiative, even citing statistics from Seattle’s program.

Citing Hall, Cathcart said about 30 people are responsible for 30% to 40% of downtown Spokane crime.

Honing in on repeat offenders creates more capacity for law enforcement and courts and businesses and community members feel more safe, he said.

“It’s helpful across the board,” Cathcart said.

He said he met with several stakeholders in the criminal justice system about his proposed ordinance and received pushback regarding technical differences between operations in Spokane and Seattle. Cathcart said he was happy to hold off on the ordinance.

He said he also spoke with Spokane Police Chief Kevin Hall, who has ideas for a high utilizer initiative.

“It’s slow going,” Cathcart said.

He said a Spokane initiative similar to Seattle’s would require cooperation from the courts and space in the jail, which has capacity issues.

Cathcart said he’s pushed the city administration to consider contracting with facilities in other counties to allow long-term Spokane County inmates to stay there, freeing up space in the Spokane County Jail for repeat offenders. The decision would require coordination with Spokane County officials.

The action would be an immediate alternative to a potential new jail that, if approved, would be built in several years.

Cathcart said Spokane courts would have to be on the same page as the city, holding repeat and violent offenders accountable. He also acknowledged the need for mental health and substance abuse resources.