OLYMPIA — Washington’s Justice Reinvestment Initiative would help prevent frequent-flying property offenders from committing more crimes, proponents say.
Recidivist thieves and burglars — often addicted to drugs or brain disordered — might have benefited from the bill to reduce sentences for some offenders but increase their probation supervision, they say.
The initiative, a pet proposal of state Sen. Jim Hargove of Hoquiam, has passed the Senate as Senate Bill 5755.
He shepherded it through the Republican-controlled state Senate 40-9, he said.
Its companion measure, House Bill 1885, is set for hearing at 9 a.m. Tuesday before the House Committee of Public Safety.
Hargrove represents the 24th District with fellow Democrats Reps. Steve Tharinger and Kevin Van De Wege. The district covers Clallam and Jefferson counties and part of Grays Harbor County.
The act, if passed and signed into law by Gov. Jay Inslee, would affect crimes committed after July 1, 2015.
It would put most first-time property offenders under a year’s supervision by the state Department of Corrections when they are released from prison or jail.
Hargrove said it would give them a better shot at going straight.
Sequim Police Chief Bill Dickinson questioned if that were true.
“I’m concerned if we don’t have a mechanism to protect the public, which is incarceration, will putting [offenders] on probation and making them check in once a week stop that?” Dickinson said.
Clallam County Sheriff Bill Benedict agrees with Hargrove — up to a point.
“There’s lot of good in the Justice Reinvestment Initiative,” Benedict said Friday.
“I stipulate that our recidivism rate (offenders committing subsequent crimes and returning to incarceration) is way too high.”
But the sheriff, Clallam County Prosecuting Attorney Mark Nichols, and the police chiefs of Port Angeles and Sequim say the program is being stripped of funds as it moves through the state Legislature.
Justice Reinvestment would replace some prison sentences with jail terms — and shift the cost for keeping inmates behind bars from the state onto its 39 counties.
Yet the bill has no revenue stream to house the 10 to 15 street-level drug dealers a year who’d no longer serve their sentences in prison but in the Clallam County jail instead, Benedict said.
At $80 per inmate a day — $29,200 annually— the bill for cell, food, medical care and supervision might total $435,000 a year, he said.
“The Legislature says to the county, ‘Go raise taxes,’ but raising taxes in this economic environment is very difficult,” Benedict told Peninsula Daily News, citing a jail that’s filled to capacity.
Nichols told the Port Angeles Business Association earlier this month that the initiative provides no funding for its programs.
“Under justice reinvestment,” Nichols said then, “we might not have the capacity to house them in the local jail.”
Nichols said the measure appeared to be on a fast-track to Inslee.
Not so fast, said Port Angeles Police Chief Terry Gallagher.
“The state Department of Corrections cannot adequately manage the case loads presented to them now,” he said.
“Substantially increasing their workload by mandating the intensive supervision of hundreds, maybe thousands of new clients statewide is a recipe for disaster absent adequate funding.”
According to Benedict, the half-dozen community corrections officers for Clallam and Jefferson counties supervise about 300 offenders who have been released from prison.
“Our local DOC office does not have the staff to manage the offenders that the Port Angeles Police Department could potentially send their way,” Gallagher said, “let alone the numbers that might be represented by all Clallam County law enforcement agencies.”
The chief called the initiative “an effort to free up prison bed space while potentially saving millions of dollars.
“My view is that the state may indeed save millions, but the potential for substantial costs being shifted onto the county or cities is certainly there.”
Hargrove denies that it would burden corrections counselors or county jails with unfunded mandates.
“We’re either going to fund this adequately, or we’re not going to do it,” Hargrove said.
“We’re not doing this as a budget savings.”
Revising sentencing, Hargrove told the PDN, “will actually reduce our property crimes in this state quite dramatically” and in the end save money.
Proponents note that although 27 percent of property crimes are first offenses, Washington has provided no post-prison supervision for property offenders since 1984.
Hargrove cites data developed by a governor’s task force that he cochaired last year.
It in turn grew from a federal search for better ways to fight crime and reduce its cost.
The state’s present system isn’t working, Hargrove said.
Although the state punishes property criminals with the stiffest sentences in the nation, it still stands No. 1 among states for property offenses per capita.
Hargrove’s task force set a goal of reinvesting $4 million in the first biennium and $8 million in the second biennium in law enforcement, he said
“It also has a grant program to provide some additional resources for community policing, which will also roll up into a lower property crime rate,” he said.
“So, this will cost us a little bit this year as we implement some of the supervision and treatment around some of these offenders.
“But in the future it should start saving us quite a bit of money, including potentially delaying the need for another state prison within the next six years or seven years.
“So this is a way to make your citizens safer, to reduce property crime in the state and to save the state money.”
Jefferson County Prosecuting Attorney Mike Haas supports it.
“What we’re trying to focus on is getting people off the revolving wheel,” he said.
“The flip side is that we can’t get any worse. If it doesn’t work, we go back to what we’ve been doing.”
Van De Wege said he’ll back the bill.
“I know some people have some angst when criminals aren’t punished enough, but generally it’s becoming a nonpartisan issue because there’s so many studies that show lower recidivism when we do these sort of programs.
“Less crime in the future means fewer victims.”
Tharinger said he needs to examine budget implications.
“The data is that it’s pretty effective. The question is the cost and where the money is going to come from.”
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