Moving at lightning speed after doing nothing for months, on Wednesday the Seattle City Council’s Public Safety Committee voted to send the full council a bill approving a contract with the South Correctional Entity (SCORE) in Des Moines, despite lingering questions around cost and operations. The contract could potentially increase the City’s deficit, or drain funds from another City program, but the council refused to wait for more details on any of that as they desperately try to pass something that will allow them to say they attempted to take a bite out of crime. 

Last week, Mayor Bruce Harrell sent the city council legislation regarding the SCORE contract, which outlined a plan to pay the jail $2 million per year for 20 beds. The City would use those beds to hold people accused of nonviolent, low-level misdemeanor crimes for 24 to 48 hours. Harrell acknowledged in his announcement that the jail would hold people for such a short time because the nature of their alleged crimes would likely not result in further prosecution following their first appearance in court. 

Harrell wants the option to send people to SCORE because low staffing numbers forced the King County Jail to impose booking restrictions that limit the admission of nonviolent misdemeanors, except in cases where someone presents a public safety threat. Last week, the jail agreed to lift booking restrictions for downtown, including areas such as Little Saigon and Belltown, until the end of the summer, according to a council central staff memo.

Still, the mayor’s office and the council chafes at having to ask King County every time they want to throw a shoplifter in jail, hence Public Safety Committee Chair Bob Kettle’s special committee hearing to vote on this SCORE legislation.

Kettle opened the discussion by voicing his support for the bill and by championing the council’s new tough-on-crime majority. While he and others on the committee touted the measure as a way to significantly improve public safety, the plan looks pretty silly and wasteful, and major operational questions remain unanswered. The whole idea amounts to paying cops to drive nonviolent offenders 15 miles away, drop them off at the jail, hold them for 24 to 48 hours, and then drive back down there, pick them up, and drive back up to Seattle to provide a “warm hand-off” to service providers or maybe a case manager with very little to offer; phone numbers for overfilled shelters, etc. 

During the public comment period, there seemed to be some disconnect between what people want this bill to do and what this bill will actually do. Most of the people who spoke in favor of the legislation described their desire to address those accused of violent felonies, not people stealing less than $750 worth of groceries, which would be the type of person the City would send to SCORE under this contract.

King County Department of Public Defense Director Anita Khandelwal illustrated the likely ineffectiveness of the bill with a recent example of a case involving a person on the City’s High Utilizer Initiative (HUI) list. The jail booked the man twice in one week for stealing groceries, holding him for less than 24 hours both times. The time in jail altered nothing about the fact that the man remained hungry, Khandelwal argued. He ended up back in jail on a felony burglary charge, serving as yet another example in support of what the research already tells us, which is that putting people in jail over and over does little to prevent future crimes.

Khandelwal added that the City’s plan to send people to SCORE seemed to treat pretrial detention as a way to punish people prior to any court convicting them, which is not the purpose of pretrial detention. Judges impose pretrial detention to ensure a person’s appearance at future court hearings, and in cases where the person presents a threat to public safety.

After the public comment portion of the meeting, a member of the council’s central staff listed the many operational issues that the mayor’s office still needed to sort out in the contract, as well as the potential for the plan to actually cost more than what the City has estimated. Council Member Tammy Morales also pointed out the many unanswered questions regarding the program. Even the Mayor’s Chief Innovation Officer, Andrew Myerberg, said, “We don’t have all the answers.” Nevertheless, the mayor’s office has moved hastily to pass this bill.

Morales also raised concern about the six deaths at SCORE within the 18 months. In response, the city attorney’s former deputy and the mayor’s current public safety director, Natalie Walton-Anderson, began by acknowledging that any death in a jail was a tragedy. She then argued that a total of 12 deaths have occurred at SCORE since the jail opened in 2011, and they’ve booked hundreds of people during that time, so there’s proof that people can serve time there and not die. Walton-Anderson added that people die in other jails too, including King County. That’s true, but King County saw one death in 2023 and one in 2024—not six in the last year. 

At one point in the discussion, Morales asked about how quickly someone at SCORE could connect with services, and Walton-Anderson could not answer her. Instead, she talked around the issue by focusing on the fact that while SCORE could offer services, it couldn’t force anyone to accept them. Morales countered, saying the Mayor in part based his SCORE plan on the idea that jailing people would connect them to services, so if it doesn’t, then she’s “not really sure what this is accomplishing.” 

Ultimately, Council Members Rob Saka, Cathy Moore, Kettle, and Council President Sara Nelson voted to pass the bill out of committee, and Council Member Joy Hollingsworth abstained. Morales, who does not sit on the public safety committee, could not vote. 

The bill will now head to the full council on Tuesday. Myerberg said that most of the operational questions should be answered by then, and the budgeting questions should be answered by the time the council goes through biennial budgeting starting in September. Given their blind support for the current bill, it’ll likely pass regardless of any new information one way or the other. 

Editor’s note: An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated the timeframe for the six deaths at SCORE.

Ashley Nerbovig is a staff writer at The Stranger covering policing, incarceration and courts. She is like other girls.

29 replies on “Seattle’s Slapdash Plan to Jail More Low-Level, Nonviolent Offenders”

  1. This is ideological posturing on a level even Sawant never achieved. We’re gonna basically light tax dollars on fire just so the new CMs can say they’re tough on (petty) crime. Pathetic.

  3. @1: Well said, but it’s even worse.

    Deterrence is a function of the likelihood of getting caught rather than the severity of punishment.

    To the extent the severity of punishment matters, the sentence upon adjudication for Davidson’s poster child for jailing “someone who threw a rock through a window” is up to 1 year in prison and/or $5,000 fine.

    Pre-adjudication jail upon arrest is apparently only going to be a matter of 1-3 days in jail.

    So in terms of really mattering to punish or deter people it’s a nothing burger.

    But it will require police officers to burn time ferrying prisoners to and from South King County.

    You know police officers can’t do while functioning as armed Uber drivers? Prevent or solve crimes.

    So this will likely lower SPD’s already crummy clearance rate. And that rate is…the source of deterrence.

    So it’s not just wasting money, its kneecapping police effectiveness and reducing deterrence too.

    ¯(ツ)/¯

  4. Combine with the Stay Out of Drug Areas plan announced today and we might have a usable downtown again. This seems like progress towards a city that respects all of its citizens rather than capitulating to the anti-socia and criminal behaviors of a small few.

  5. “Moving at lightning speed after doing nothing for months”

    What is the basis for the “doing nothing for months” characterization? The proposed legislation has only been around for 7 business days, so it’s not like the council was sitting on it without voting.

    Is this an attempt to tie back to the Stranger’s prior “reporting” suggesting this counsel was ineffective, because to date is has passed less legislation than the 2020 counsel did while grappling with an unprecedented global pandemic?

  6. @1, 3:

    What are we supposed to do with individuals who suspected of misdemeanor crimes when “based on past history and the nature of the crime, pose[ ] a danger to the public,” or when “[t]he victim and witnesses have legitimate fear of retaliation?”* Just turn them loose and hope everything turns out o.k. for them and the persons they encounter? I don’t know, maybe I am naïve, but considering the current slate of available options, it seems reasonable to have the option to detain such individuals and try to connect them with services. I am genuinely curious what you think we should do with those individuals.

    *These are the criteria that must be met to transfer a misdemeanor arrestee to SCORE.

  7. @6 nobody’s getting connected to services that’s a con. First, the county jail has already agreed to book people on nonviolent misdemeanors if they’re from a “downtown activation area” that includes the entire CBD (yes 3rd and Pike), Belltown, and the CID. And the City themselves acknowledge the people booked at SCORE will likely get out in 24 hours or so. So all we’re talking about is making an SPD officer drive people who trespassed in Fremont or whatever a half hour to Des Moines for a night, and then make Municipal Court figure out how to get them from Des Moines for their hearing. Then they’re back out anyway. It’s a massive waste of time and money.

  9. @5 beat me to it.

    Also, “Moving at lightning speed after doing nothing for months” may be the impression from where outsiders – including The Stranger – sit, but real governing involves lots of preliminary ‘behind-the-scenes’ staff work like legal research, bill drafting, statistical modeling, etc. that have all the dynamic action of watching paint dry. It’s very possible that’s what they’ve been ‘doing for months.’

  10. @7 So, we just turn persons who are a threat to the public or witnesses/victims loose, because there’s some sort of shadowy conspiracy falsely claiming this legislation would connect arrestees with services?

  11. @10: They are going to be turned loose, as soon as the next day, just with a lot of overhead and wasted resources ferrying them around.

    King County was willing to negotiate conditions for booking people into the jail here – if the City had a serious rubric for cases where booking into jail was necessary, evidence is they would have been able to come to agreement.

    It’s a big tell that Davison’s poster child for booking into jail is someone throwing a rock through a window – not threatening witness etc. This is all about performative punching down and magical thinking (at the cost of a net loss to public safety).

  12. @7, you say Muni court will have to figure out how to transport them from Des Moines back to court for their hearing. But you can hold someone in jail for up to 48 hours without any court hearing and the article says most will be released within 48 hours. So it is up to offender to get from Des Moines back to Seattle for their court hearing (if there even is a court hearing, the article talks about “no further prosecution.”) I see this plan as Seattle bussing their low level offenders to Des Moines in hopes that they stick around Des Moines rather than migrate back to downtown Seattle. It’s not about convicting them but about removing them from the City of Seattle.

  13. @9: “…lots of preliminary ‘behind-the-scenes’ staff work like legal research, bill drafting, statistical modeling, etc.”

    The Stranger regards all of that as “doing nothing,” exactly because the Stranger supports only those candidates who absolutely and permanently refuse to have anything to do with any of that, e.g. ‘“I don’t want to talk about things anymore. I don’t want to collect data. I don’t want to do more research. We know the answers,” Reed said.’

    (https://www.thestranger.com/elections-2023/2023/05/19/78997570/mutual-aid-organizer-tye-reed-enters-city-council-race-in-north-seattle)

  14. @10 you wrote “considering the current slate of available options, it seems reasonable to have the option to detain such individuals and try to connect them with services” so I was clarifying that’s not what’s happening. The actual proposal, which is to expend valuable police time and taxpayer money just to put alleged nonviolent misdemeanants in a short timeout, does not seem reasonable.

  18. @16-17: No matter what the City Council does, at least those workers at the Pike Place Starbucks won’t have to worry about having their wages reduced, right?

  19. “putting people in jail over and over does little to prevent future crimes.”

    Language matters. Putting people in jail and immediately releasing them does little to prevent future crimes, because said person is back out on the street and able to rapidly reoffend. Putting people in jail and holding them there does a lot to prevent future crimes, because said person is in custody and not able to rapidly reoffend.

    The question is whether holding an offender in jail is appropriate or not. Reoffend enough and the answer may well be yes, even when in the vast majority of circumstances the answer is no. That seems to me to be the city’s frustration. if King County refuses to book at all, then there’s no way to keep in custody the very limited subset of repeat offenders who need it.

  20. @19 “if King County refuses to book at all, then there’s no way to keep in custody the very limited subset of repeat offenders who need it.”

    The County has been booking Davison’s “High Utilizers” this whole time

  21. @20 — High utilizers cover an even more limited subset of people than what I’m talking about. Someone who breaks out some windows at a business or home in Seattle wouldn’t be booked because King County would refuse to take them. Then if they go back to the same business or home and break out more windows again they wouldn’t be booked. Then again, and again, and finally again, only being booked once they have more than 5 referrals to the city prosecutor and qualify as a high utilizer. Meanwhile, imagine trying to run a business or feel safe in your home when this is happening. Imagine what kind of impact that type of behavior has on that business or homeowner individually and the surrounding community when it keeps on repeating itself. Imagine having to burn through your insurance deductible with out of pocket $ because people who are committing crimes keep returning to commit more crimes without ever seeing the inside of a jail cell.

    That’s bad, but that’s what people like you are arguing is totally fine. Thankfully most people in the city don’t agree that it’s totally fine, and city leaders are also of the opinion that it’s not totally fine, which is why they are seeking a new jail provider more in line with their priorities. There’s a market available to the city for these services, and if King County can’t or won’t meet the city’s requirements, then it’s appropriate for the city to look elsewhere.

  22. @21: “Then if they go back to the same business or home and break out more windows again they wouldn’t be booked.”

    I’d wage good money that if the City negotiated in good faith with the County the latter would certainly agree to “sure in cases like this we’ll take ’em.”

    Notably neither Seattle’s city attorney nor the council members pushing for this have provided a single example…

  23. @21 “Someone who breaks out some windows at a business or home in Seattle wouldn’t be booked because King County would refuse to take them. Then if they go back to the same business or home and break out more windows again they wouldn’t be booked. Then again, and again”

    Do you have any reason to believe this is actually happening? The person would almost certainly be ordered as a condition of release to have no contact with the victim location so they could presumably be booked even the first time they return. Plus any damage above $750 is a felony, and breaking storefront windows can pretty easily hit that number. I don’t think your hypothetical is remotely realistic. Like most people who support this absurdly wasteful proposal your argument is based on wholly imaginary fears arising out of a lack of understanding of the actual criminal system–not a good basis for serious policy decisions.

  25. @23 — King County doesn’t file anything under $7500 as a felony, even though the legislature has set $750 as the threshold for a felony level crime. See section 15 below:

    https://cdn.kingcounty.gov/-/media/king-county/depts/pao/documents/filing-disposition-standards/fads.pdf?rev=8ad3ff65299b4a60b5c559f91c55f20d&hash=FEBB056D84F9891561B64AA2B290C009

    “your argument is based on wholly imaginary fears arising out of a lack of understanding of the actual criminal system”

    It’s good to have knowledge of how things actually work before criticizing others for supposedly not knowing how things work. Better luck next time!

  26. @23: “Do you have any reason to believe this is actually happening? The person would almost certainly be ordered as a condition of release to have no contact with the victim location so they could presumably be booked even the first time they return.”

    “Dorian M. has been booked into King County Jail 16 times since March 2018. In January 2019 alone, Dorian was arrested and charged in four new cases, including a felony burglary case. Almost all his offenses were on the University of Washington campus, including trespass, malicious mischief, theft, and burglary. Most of his cases were handled by the King County District Court. In his first 12 arrests in 2018, he never spent more than 36 hours in jail despite conditions of release from his prior bookings that specified no new law violations.”

    (https://downtownseattle.org/files/advocacy/system-failure-prolific-offender-report-feb-2019.pdf)

  27. @25 filing doesn’t happen until after booking. We’re talking about booking, specifically the jail’s refusal to book people arrested for nonviolent misdemeanors, which damage over $750 is not. So whether PAO ultimately files a case or not is irrelevant to the discussion at hand. Better luck next time!

  28. @27 — tell me you didn’t read the link I posted without telling me you didn’t read the link I posted. Law enforcement is told explicitly to not even bother booking on a felony charge if they know that the prosecutor’s office won’t file on said charge. So if a Seattle PD officer gets a report of theft or vandalism that state law says should be a felony but King County won’t file as a felony, they are told to send it directly to Seattle Municipal Court and book on a misdemeanor charge, which the jail then won’t allow. King County never makes a filing decision — the Seattle City Attorney does — because the officers know to not bother to send it to King County based on King County’s written guidelines which I posted for you and you didn’t bother to read.

    Again, you’re welcome to have whatever opinion you want, but it would be worthwhile to try to learn about the stuff you’re commenting on before you make statements that are totally wrong while simultaneously accusing others of not knowing what they are talking about.

    Speaking of you not knowing what you’re talkimg about, here’s an article about business owners suffering from the type of repetitive vandalism that you say isn’t happening.

    http://www.king5.com/article/news/local/seattle-business-owners-lose-storefront-repair-funding/281-03ea57a7-0695-4859-b0df-df2512e03c87

  29. @28 first, that’s not what it says. Second, even if it did, SPD could just write it up as a felony anyway–they aren’t bound by PAO filing practices.

    With regard to the “repetitive vandalism” your hypothetical was the same person going back to the same location five times. That article does not support your hypo, which again was imaginary nonsense.

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