By Erica C. Barnett
For this week’s episode of Seattle Nice, we brought in a guest expert—Purpose Dignity Action Co-Director Lisa Daugaard, whose organization established the LEAD diversion program in Belltown—to discuss the latest efforts to address misdemeanor criminal activity in downtown Seattle.
As we reported exclusively last week, King County’s Department of Adult and Juvenile Detention agreed to resume booking people who commit misdemeanor crimes, including violations of the recently adopted law re-criminalizing drug use and possession, in the “downtown activation zone,” an area that extends from the Chinatown-International District to South Lake Union. Booking decisions will be up to individual police officers.
Since the onset of COVID, the jail has limited bookings to the most serious misdemeanors, such as domestic violence and driving under the influence, with exceptions for so-called “high utilizers” of the criminal justice system and areas the city periodically designates as “hot spots,” like the area around 12th Ave. S. and South Jackson St.
Simultaneously, the city council will discuss a contract this week that would to send people arrested for misdemeanors in Seattle to the SCORE jail in Des Moines. Proponents have argued that expanding the number of jail beds the city can access is necessary to get disruptive people off the street—or, as Sandeep likes to put it, making them “spend some time in the pokey”—and deter crime. Opponents say it makes little sense to move people from Seattle to South King County for short jail stays (most people booked in jail for misdemeanors are detained for three days or less), and argue that locking people up while they wait for charges to be filed against them does nothing to reduce low-level crime.
Daugaard positions herself somewhere between both of these positions. She agrees, basically, that jail isn’t a deterrent, but argues that for people who are committing destructive crimes, like breaking windows, it can have a positive disruptive effect. “I don’t actually think this is a debate about more versus fewer people in jail,” Daugaard told us. “It’s about the city’s ability to determine when individuals, in their view, need to be booked into jail, and to not be met with an administrative barrier to that decision.”
She also suggested that booking restrictions “build up an appetite” to jail people for misdemeanors, because policy makers start to see the restrictions themselves as the cause of visible problems, such as concentrated drug use downtown. “I don’t think putting people in jail for those offenses would fix conditions on our streets,” Daugaard said, “but I do understand that absolutely prohibiting that fosters that belief. So in my opinion, it is better to allow discretion and then have a system wide conversation on [why] that is not effective. And it doesn’t really make sense to do it, except in very unusual circumstances.”
Listen to our conversation on Apple Podcasts, or on your favorite podcast app.
All “Bubbleator” seems to do is put people down here. I have always thought Tim Burgess is just hiding behind that name. Bubbleator just needs to do some growing up and get over his grievances.
Whatevs, dude. I call em like I see em – and when I see your posts I see a dismissive douchebag who spends WAY too much time getting high on his own supply.
PS – what’s with the Burgess thing? That dude actually knows me and rest assured he dislikes me even more than I dislike him.
…and PPS – re-read my post – if Cheetolini manages to squeak/cheat out another win it’s because “progressive” idiots like you created the fodder for him to do so by not accepting the reality that some people do in fact need to go to jail occasionally, and for reasonable amounts of time. Talk about not knowing how to read the room (or state, or country).
I found this discussion to be very insightful
Some people should be locked up. Sorry SJW’s, but failing to acknowledge this cold hard fact is the biggest favor progressives have done to Trump’s (and a lot of other right-wing nutjobs) election prospects.
The Fentanyl addict who stole my car (and doubtless lots of other ones, based on the number of shaved keys I found after they passed out and crashed it) should be sentenced to a year in jail so they can detox and ruminate on their life choices.
As to misdemeanors, if you cost some working-class person a $500 deductible after breaking their car window to steal their shit (assuming they carry comprehensive, that is), a couple of nights in jail is still getting off pretty easy in my view.
At the very least, when these folks are in jail, they aren’t committing crimes. That sounds like prevention to me (and most normies).
You shouldn’t try to speak for normies ’cause you clearly aren’t anything of the sort.
Um, OK. Deny my lived experience (one car stolen twice, the other having the catalytic converter stolen, and both having been prowled multiple times where I had to pay the deductible to replace the windows) all you want.
I’m right, and you’re just callow, naive and wrong, scooter. Idealistic schmucks like you make for a stereotype that law and order jagoff Republicans can and have taken to the electoral bank since the Nixon-era.
Own it, Junior – but don’t blame me when you defund/restorative justice types undermine Democratic candidates in the districts that matter and abortion gets even more banned/Social Security is cut/any number of other MAGA right-wing wet dreams come true. “But her emails” “Hilary is not likeable”, “There is no difference between the R’s and corporate Dems” et al ad nauseum.
What are you, like 22, maybe 23? Grow the fuck up.