In an email sent to all Seattle Police Department (SPD) officers on Tuesday, SPD Deputy Chief Eric Barden celebrated the end of King County Jail’s misdemeanor booking restrictions and told officers to immediately begin increasing arrests. Barden called the decision “another great step forward for the City and, particularly, for Seattle PD.” Not so great for Seattle’s poorest and most vulnerable residents, who will comprise the “overwhelming majority of people” jailed under this change, said King County Department of Public Defense Interim Director Matt Sanders in a statement to The Stranger Thursday.
In September, Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell and King County Executive Dow Constantine announced an agreement to lift booking restrictions, which had previously prevented SPD officers from jailing people pre-trial for low-level and non-violent crimes such as low-value theft, criminal trespass, and public drug use. The restrictions went into place because of COVID-19 and remained active due to low staffing at the jail, which is a predicament still plaguing the King County Department of Adult and Juvenile Detention (DAJD). Department spokesperson Noah Haglund said that the jail has 60 staffing vacancies as compared to the start of 2024 when it was closer to 100. But with those 40 additional guards, Constantine believes the new agreement balances booking needs with the wellbeing of jail staff, Haglund said.
The agreement, which took effect November 1, increased the number of jail beds the City could use for misdemeanors to 135. Barden explained in his email Tuesday that in the six months prior, SPD held on average about 90 people a day on misdemeanors at the jail, so the increase would mean an additional 45 beds available to officers per day. The jail held well over 200 people on misdemeanor charges per day in 2019, according to Barden.
“So, while we are moving in the right direction, we are nowhere near pre-pandemic capacity,” Barden said.
With booking restrictions lifted, Barden told officers to book people into jail “whenever there is a public safety interest.” The only time officers should not consider booking someone, Barden counseled, was when the City reached or neared its 135-bed capacity. “Otherwise, booking decisions consistent with pre-pandemic assessments should be utilized.” The email made no mention of considering diversion options.
In a call with the Stranger, Barden explained that “public safety interest” meant officers should arrest if they believe a person could continue to be a problem for a business, the community, or residents in the area, and said officers should not arrest if those factors aren’t present. Barden argued that arresting people can both remove them from a cycle of crime, prevent further decompensation for people in a mental health crisis, and set them on a path toward recovery.
Sanders disagreed with that perspective and pointed to studies that show jailing people pre-trial undermines public safety in many cases, and increases the chances that someone commits another crime. Even one to two days in jail can disrupt a person’s life, making it difficult to maintain stable housing, secure medical care for behavioral health conditions, or hold down a job. Lifting the booking restrictions means people presumed innocent might spend time in jail for the lowest level of crimes that might not even end up charged, and still have their entire lives disrupted, Sanders said.
Barden said he understood that perspective, but as he drives around Seattle he sees more disorder than he did before the booking restrictions went into place. As a result, even while the restrictions remained in place in 2023, property and violent crime in Seattle fell compared to 2022, and homicides fell in 2024, which speaks to an empirical improvement in public safety, if not a subjective cosmetic change to downtown Seattle.
The City has made it clear in the past two years that it plans to use cops to address substance abuse, poverty, and people with mental illness, all issues many argue would be better addressed through social services and unarmed alternative response teams. The City has tried to establish new diversion paths, and when it created its drug law earlier this year it came with a policy requiring SPD to consider diversion before booking someone in jail for drug use. Barden said that lifting booking restrictions would not change that.
Returning to a pre pandemic booking mindset means potentially returning to the days when officers threw people in jail for stealing $30 sleeping bags and souvenir pennies. We reached out to City Attorney Ann Davison to ask her perspective on whether she also planned to crack down on prosecuting low-level, misdemeanor crimes, as she’s advocated for in the past, but she declined to comment.
Update: The Mayor’s Office told the Stranger that it believes the City needs an adequate number of jail beds and the ability to book people into jail and people who cause harm in the City should be held accountable. But, “jail is not always the first or most appropriate option,” and Harrell has strongly advocated “for diversion and treatment options to help nonviolent offenders get the services they need.”
“Not so great for Seattle’s poorest and most vulnerable residents”
How aloof and condescending. Poor and vulnerable people are good people and don’t break laws.
It’s true, experiencing a consequence for committing a crime can really disrupt a person’s week. If only there were some way to avoid such disruptions.
If you walk into a store and steal something, you should be arrested.
It’s amazing that you can have far lefties, like the Stranger, that use twisted logic to understand why Democrats got their ass kicked nation-wide on Tuesday (“They weren’t left enough!!!”), while at the same time advocating that someone that steals shit should NOT be arrested or punished.
“It’s only a $30 sleeping bag… and they stole it from Fred Meyer, which is an evil corporation… blah, blah, blah, capitalism… blah, blah, blah… eat the rich!!…. so it’s OK!!!”
Seriously, Ashley… see how the “don’t arrest someone if they steal” logic plays nation-wide. Hint: it doesn’t… even in blue areas.
How does an incompetent asshole like Trump get elected? When the other side advocates shit positions like the one Ashley does in this piece.
It’s some of this why the democrats lost the election.
I’m sorry should have said this article is what caused the democrats to lose the election. Mostly it was the economy, but most of the country is sick and tired of addicts being given a free rein.
Well they don’t have to look far downtown is crawling with law breakers. Open air drug markets are rampant, open drug use, shoplifting, vandalism the list goes on. The Stranger and former socialist council member Sawant like to call them “victims of poverty” but that is a bunch of BS and offensive to to those who are in poverty who follow the law.
Downtown does not need reactivating it needs taken back from the fentanyl users and the drugs dealers who sell to them. so that people and families feel safe walking the streets free of screaming bent over passed out addicts. Jail or treatment ought to be the two options given to those arrested for public drug use. Either one is more humane than letting them continue to suffer as they continue their addiction on a path to death.
You want to see why Trump was elected the Stranger and progressives need only look in the mirror. This stuff and all the Gaza talk elected Trump for another 4 years. With another round of judges through this time the cost will be decades. You handed Trump the election Kristofarian.
@6 Remember, it’s Pro-Trump Sawant (she got exactly what she wanted for the election)
and Yet
Corporate
Crime DWARFS
All the Shoplifting
and Misdemeanors
yet
Where
tf’s tS on That!?
when
the Rich
Control the
Rest of Us and
smaller and smaller
bits of the Pie happen
to somehow Trickle Down
for ‘the Bottom 75%,’ or so, to
wrassle from Each Other, can you
Guess who’s gonna Hafta See & Endure it?
do our
Billionaires
ever hafta trip
over Addicts, their
needles and the Homeless?
we the
People’re
paying those
Costs but you
Know what They
Say? don’t Look UP.
fight amongst Yourselves
& leave those poor
Rich peeps
Alone.
the
donold’ll
see you Now.
who knows? perhaps
even You might be
joining the Ranks
good. luck.
Yes, in the election Dems chose to bill as “a prosecutor vs a felon” voters chose the felon because they thought the prosecutor was soft on crime. You guys are very smart.
the only Crimes
the donold shall
Prosecute’re those
of the Least amongst Us
the Rest’ll
all get sweet-
heart no-bid Con-
tracts & Gilded Pensions
but at least tS’s
Commentariat’ll have so
Much more Fuel for their Fires.
Kristofarian can talk the talk all he wants, but the reality is trying to push everyone so far to the left with those views as given us Trump. Right or wrong this country isn’t ready for most of the shit he bitches about. Israel was attacked and the answer is let’s demonstrate for the people that did the attacking. All the progressives that did sit ins and stopped traffic the only win you got was Trump.
speaking of
Revisionist
“History”:
@12
the “D”NC’s
Corporatization’s
what’s drug the USofA
into trumpftopia, not Progressive
Policies like Bernie fucking Sanders’
which is Approved By a MAJORITY of
the Citizenry. donold co-opted Bernie’s
Platform in 2016 & outflanked yet another
Clinton in her/their rightward shift Away from
FDR, LBJ and democratic Socialism and
bringing to US the very same Fascism
we fucking Fought Against 60-odd
years ago, so Now we’ve gotta
Fight it all Over once Again
only This Time it’s
all Homegrown.
but, not to
Worry — the
“right” ALWAYS
Overreaches – but
WILL we fucking Survive
their latest Assault on Democracy
BEfore the Pendulum can Reverse course?
stay
tuned.
nyt:
Kamala Harris
Had a Wall Street-Ap-
proved Economic Pitch. It Fell Flat.
The vice president vacillated on how to talk about the economy, and ended up adopting tweaks that corporate and progressive allies said muddled the message.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/09/us/politics/harris-trump-economy.html
oops!
Better
‘luck”
Next
Time!
keep
Corporatizing
“D”NC! it’s Bound
to Work. Eventuallly!
Put the bottle down. I didn’t say any of that. I pointed out you and anyone else that pushed Gaza helped elect Trump. Push back all you want, but you and those like you contributed to not vote for the democrats bringing us Trump. How do you sleep at night? I have money on it being funded be far right nuts to hurt the democrats and you were suckered in.
Every single local government Democratic elected official in the country should be asking themselves two questions right now:
Am I prioritizing normal people over those who engage in antisocial conduct?
Am I relentlessly focused on making sure my constituents are receiving high quality essential services?
Too many cities — Seattle included, with The Stranger loudly cheering — have decided that whenever there are tradeoffs, homeless people and criminals should be prioritized over residents and the law-abiding. Homeless encampments engaging in rampant criminality are allowed to endanger neighborhoods when residents desperately beg the city for help. Business have no choice but to either lock up everything or close entirely because the city does nothing when criminals steal.
Too many cities — Seattle included, with The Stranger loudly cheering — have deprioritized essential services to spend money or time on dumb shit with no perceptible benefit to residents. The Seattle Fire Department is running far more calls than it was 20 years ago. Has the city increased their resources to deal with the massively increased workload? Of course not. Basic services scrape by, nonessential stuff gets prioritized.
The cities have to show the country that handing Democratic candidates the keys to the car won’t drive it into the ditch, and they have to start now. Holding criminals accountable is a great start. Let’s hope they keep it up.
@16 “The cities have to show the country that handing Democratic candidates the keys to the car won’t drive it into the ditch, and they have to start now. Holding criminals accountable is a great start.”
The idea that crime is a Democrats or Democrat-led city problem is a right wing talking point and it’s false.
https://www.thirdway.org/report/the-21st-century-red-state-murder-crisis
https://www.newsweek.com/high-crime-gop-cities-fueled-guns-inequality-1797939
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/31/briefing/crime.html
When it comes to this narrative, like @15 ironically wrote right before you commented: “I have money on it being funded be far right nuts to hurt the democrats and you were suckered in.”
Try driving through the streets of Seattle. Then drive through the streets of Salt Lake City or Boise. Even the Tri Cities and its easy to see the difference between Democrat run cities and Republican. Anyone that can’t see how negatively Gaza affected the number of voters when many backed not voting has blinders on.
@18 good point Kamala’s Gaza stance was pretty offputting, definitely something for the Dems to think about next time
@18 Those are more independent Republicans, however. They are a different animal than the Bezos and real estate crowd in Seattle, and who are not that indistinguishable at the end of the day from the bipartisan failure in Washington.
@19 Kamala’s stance was the same as Biden and all Democrats since Israel was formed. Its only recently the progressives have decided that the Palestinians should get to attack whenever they want without retribution and in fact people will demonstrate and have sit ins for rapists. Trump is going to allow much worse.
@21 I’m just saying if you think her stance was so unpopular that it cost her enough votes to lose the election they should obviously try a different stance next time. Seems incredibly obvious I’m not sure how you’d disagree.
thirteen12 dear, by the time the next election comes along, Gaza will be redeveloped into Trump Mediterranean, a planned community of “upscale” golf courses, resorts, and homes, bought to us by Kirschner Enterprises. Sawant Acres and Stein’s Landing will be two of the most premiere neighborhoods.
@23 yup, “elections have consequences” as they say. Like, if you run a tone deaf campaign and piss off your constituents the consequence is the other guy wins.
You really do live in your little world, don’t you thirteen12 dear? A world of moral purity and absolutely no nuance, self-examination, or compromise.
Sounds pretty lonely. Promise me you won’t start drinking.
@25 the people who really live in their own little world are the ones who blame other voters for their preferred candidate losing rather than, you know, the candidate
I think the beds in KCJ are an excellent place to house the fentanyl addicted criminals plaguing this city
Dollar for dollar, most criminals wear a white collar.
bingo zenhighwayman
but corporate prefers to
keep its transgressions under
wraps and use its many mouthpieces
pointing out the crimes carried out by those
on the bottom of the Food Chain. Distraction Works.
see:
Above.
Kristofarian, in your quest to rail against everything, do you ever consider that the destruction that brings has given us Trump?
@30 why can’t you wrap your head around the obvious fact that anything kristofarian or any other individual or collection of individuals may have done dramatically pales in comparison to the choices and actions of the candidate herself when it comes to explaining the candidate’s loss?
Kamala (like Hillary) lost because she ran a terrible campaign, full stop. Your desperate attempts to instead blame people with whom you disagree is an embarrassment and, to the extent it’s shared by the party, an impediment to any future electoral success by Democrats. Wake the hell up and do better.
@31 — @30’s just
softening us up for Day One
when the Marigold Dicktator takes
Us over and it’ll be ‘Watch What You Say!’
time once Again in the USofA kinda like what
ol’ CHENEY*/bush had in Store for US Post-9/11
we’ll eat their
Propaganda
and we’ll
Fucking
stfu &
we’ll
Like
it.
*she Earned even
His Respect! dick
fucking Cheney!
‘retired’ War
Criminal
cheney!
oops
there’s
goes Another
Dem — over to
the Dark Side. dang
You did all you could to help Harris lose. Live with it.
yes
We will
subby and
if the ‘d’nc’s
gonna follow
History we’ll just
keep getting Lackluster
candidates shoved down
our throats & see the Bernies
of this world get eaten Alive by
the bureaucratic/Undemocratic
DNC, LLC [lol] comfortable as
can be just watching as
it all Unfolds uncaring
as to whomsoever
happens to Win
they’re
Dragging us
into the Abyss
but it’s their Critics
who’re fucking Culpable
Hokay
dokay.
but ya don’t gotta take
My word for it subby
et al:
Democrats
Need to Clean House
Before They Screw Up Again
It wasn’t just the people running
Kamala Harris’s campaign who
failed. The leadership of the
entire party is at fault.
–by Kat Abughazaleh
oodles
https://newrepublic.com/article/188172/democrats-need-clean-house-screw?
@7; @12; @15; @18; @30; @31
subby (et al):
Trump
Stole Bernie’s
Working-Class Story.
Dems Should Steal It Back.
Sanders’s time as a potential party standard-bearer is fading, but his ideas are still valuable for a party that needs to persuade voters to return home from MAGA.
–by Aaron Regunberg
https://newrepublic.com/article/188184/bernie-winning-back-working-class?
or
ya Can
just Blame Me
that’s
Easiest.
that’s What
I’d likely do too
if’n I was You, its
being the Easiest
And on Your —
& the “Democratic”
National Committee’s
collective consciences
not to Worry!
you Still Got
FOUR MORE
YEARS of the
DONOLD.
enjoy!
& thanks.
kristofarian dear, on the bright side (based on my experience with old people, and knowing the signs), trump either won’t be here in four years or will be put out to pasture. On the not-so-bright-side, that means a President JD Vance. Going back to the bright side, there’s an awful lot of extremely ruthless Republican politicians (remember: Republicans are horrible people) who are waiting patiently for trump’s demise and they will smell blood in the water. They will make quick work of Vance, who basically has no government experience whatsoever, and seemingly only takes a stand when at a urinal.
A younger Bernie, without all the crazy baggage (not his baggage, but attached to him nonetheless) could be very well-positioned in four years.
@ Catalina:
ya Think?! whoa!
huh! — and here’s Bernie now
from his Op-Ed in yesterday’s Boston Globe:
The Democratic Party
Must Decide: Which
Side Is It On?
The results of the 2024 election have confirmed a reality that is too frequently denied by Democratic Party leaders and strategists: The American working class is angry — and for good reason.
They want to know why the very rich are getting much richer, and the CEOs of major corporations make almost 300 times more than their average employees, while weekly wages remain stagnant and 60 percent of Americans live paycheck to paycheck.
They want to know why corporate profits soar while companies shut down factories in America and move to low-wage countries.
They want to know why the food industry enjoys record breaking profits, while they can’t afford their grocery bills.
They want to know why they can’t afford to go to a doctor or pay for their prescription drugs, and worry about going bankrupt if they end up in a hospital.
Donald Trump won this election because he tapped into that anger.
Did he address any of these serious issues in a thoughtful or meaningful way? Absolutely not.
What he did do was divert the festering anger in our country at a greedy and out-of-touch corporate elite into a politics that served his political goals and will end up further enriching his fellow billionaires.
Trump’s “genius” is his ability to divide the working class so that tens of millions of Americans will reject solidarity with their fellow workers and pave the way for huge tax breaks for the very rich and large corporations.
While Trump did talk about capping credit card interest rates at 10 percent, and a new trade policy with China, his fundamental explanation as to why the working class was struggling was that millions of illegal immigrants have invaded America and that we are now an “occupied country.”
In his pathologically dishonest world, undocumented immigrants are illegally participating in our elections and voting for Democrats. They are creating massive amounts of crime, driving wages down, and taking our jobs. They are getting free health care and other benefits that are denied to American citizens. They are even eating our pets.
That explanation is grossly racist, cruel, and fallacious. But it is an explanation.
And what do the Democrats have to say about the crises facing working families? What is their full-throated explanation, pounded away day after day in the media, in the halls of Congress, and in town meetings throughout the country as to why tens of millions of workers, in the richest country on earth, are struggling to put food on the table or pay the rent?
Where is the deeply felt outrage that we are the only major country on earth not to guarantee health care for all as a human right while insurance and drug companies make huge profits?
How do they explain supporting billions of dollars in military aid to the right-wing extremist government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, which has created an unprecedented humanitarian disaster in Gaza that is causing massive malnutrition and starvation for thousands of children?
In my view, the Democrats lost this election because they ignored the justified anger of working class America and became the defenders of a rigged economic and political system.
This election was largely about class and change and the Democrats, in both cases, were often on the wrong side. As Jimmy Williams Jr., the president of the Painters Union, said, “The Democratic Party has continued to fail to prioritize a strong, working-class message that addresses issues that really matter to workers.
The party did not make a positive case for why workers should vote for them, only that they were not Donald Trump. That’s not good enough anymore!”
As an Independent member of the US Senate, I caucus with the Democrats. In that capacity I have been proud to work with President Biden on one of the most ambitious pro-worker agendas in modern history.
We passed the American Rescue Plan to pull us out of the COVID-19 economic downturn; made historic investments in rebuilding our infrastructure and in transforming our energy system; began the process of rebuilding our manufacturing base; lowered the cost of prescription drugs and forgave student debt for five million Americans.
Biden promised to be the most progressive president since FDR and, on domestic issues, he kept his word.
But, unlike FDR, these achievements are almost never discussed within the context of a grossly unfair economy that continues to fail ordinary Americans.
Yes. In the past few years we have made some positive changes. We must acknowledge, however, that what we’ve done is nowhere near enough.
In 1936, in his second inaugural address, FDR spoke not only of his administration’s enormous achievements in combating the Great Depression, but of the painful economic realities that millions of Americans were still experiencing.
Roosevelt’s words remain relevant today: “I see millions of families trying to live on incomes so meager that the pall of family disaster hangs over them day by day… I see millions denied education, recreation, and the opportunity to better their lot and the lot of their children… I see one-third of a nation ill-housed, ill-clad, ill-nourished.”
Of course, the world is today profoundly different than it was in 1936. We are not in an economic depression. Unemployment is relatively low. People are not facing starvation.
[but they ARE
Bernie, in Gaza, a genocide
brought to this Planet by OUR TAX DOLLARS]
But the Democratic leadership must recognize that, in a rapidly changing economy, working families face an enormous amount of economic pain, anxiety and hopelessness — and they want change. The status quo is not working for them.
In politics you can’t fight something with nothing. The Democratic Party needs to determine which side it is on in the great economic struggle of our times, and it needs to provide a clear vision as to what it stands for.
Either you stand
with the powerful oligarchy
of our country, or you stand with
the working class. You can’t represent both.
While Democrats will be in the minority in the Senate and (probably) the House in the new Congress, they will still have the opportunity to bring forth a strong legislative agenda that addresses the needs of working families.
If Republicans choose to vote those bills down, the American working class will learn quickly enough as to which party represents them, and which party represents corporate greed.
In my view, here are some of the working class priorities that Democrats must fight for:
We must end Citizens United and stop billionaires from buying elections.
We must raise the $7.25 federal minimum wage to a living wage — at least $17 an hour.
We must pass the Protecting the Right to Organize Act to make it easier for workers to form unions and end illegal union busting
We must protect senior citizens by increasing Social Security benefits and extending the solvency of the program by lifting the cap on taxable income.
We must bring back defined benefit pension plans so that workers can retire with security.
We must do what every other wealthy nation does and guarantee health care to all as a human right, beginning with the expansion of Medicare to cover home health care, dental, hearing, and vision.
We must cut prescription drug prices in half, no more than is paid in other countries.
We must provide guaranteed paid family and medical leave.
We must guarantee equal pay for equal work.
We must create fair trade policies that work for workers, not just corporate CEOs.
We must build 3 million units of low income and affordable housing.
We must make public colleges and universities tuition free, childcare affordable for all, and strengthen public education by paying teachers the salaries they deserve.
We must adopt a progressive tax system which addresses the massive income and wealth inequality we are experiencing by demanding that the very wealthy start paying their fair share of taxes.
We must save taxpayer dollars by ending the massive waste, fraud and abuse that exists in the Pentagon.
These are extremely popular ideas. The Democratic Party would do well to listen to the clear directive of American voters, and deliver.
The simple fact is: if you stand with working people, they will stand with you. In my view, if Democrats deliver on an agenda like this, they can win back the working class of our country and the White House.
–Bernie Fucking Sanders
from his Op-Ed in the
Boston Globe
11/10, 2024
well
there ya Go
subby; Wormtongue; et fucking al
Deal
with it.