Council Chair Bob Ferguson proposes moratorium on pretrial use of Community Corrections Program for high risk individuals

July 28, 2010

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Metropolitan King County Council Chair Bob Ferguson today introduced legislation to place a moratorium on the use of county-paid pretrial release programs for defendants charged with a violent or sex crime who have a history of violent or sex crime convictions. These restrictions would be in place until the county instituted the use of a validated risk assessment tool to guide pretrial release decisions by the courts.

A pretrial risk assessment tool weighs objective criteria, such as past criminal history, ties to the community, and other factors, to assess the risk that a defendant will fail to appear before the court or reoffend while awaiting trial. It provides critical information to guide decisions about who should be released into the community through county-paid community correction programs, including electronic home monitoring, work release, and day reporting.

“Our criminal justice system needs a risk assessment tool to identify those most likely to pose a danger to public safety while awaiting trial,” said Ferguson. “Without a risk assessment tool, the chance that high risk individuals are being released into the community is too great. I am not willing to bet the public’s safety.”

“We have serious concerns that bad actors are being released through community corrections and pose a public safety risk,” said Sergeant Doug Justus, President of the King County Corrections Guild. “This issue has been one of our top priorities, and we greatly appreciate Councilmember Ferguson’s leadership. We fully support his proposal and appreciate his focus on public safety.”

Participants of the community corrections programs include both individuals who have been convicted of a crime and those who are awaiting trial as ordered by the court. State law restricts eligibility for the post-conviction population to non-violent offenders. For pretrial defendants, no conditions on eligibility currently exist. In Washington State, all non-capital offenses are eligible for bail. For individuals who cannot post bail, the community corrections programs are available to the court to provide an alternative to jail time while awaiting trial.

Ferguson proposed the legislation after learning more about the pretrial release process in King County following his appointment to the State’s Bail Work Group. After requesting data regarding the community corrections population, including past criminal history of participants and number of individuals who reoffend while awaiting trial, it became clear that the county’s data systems are inadequate to accurately track critical information about pretrial defendants.

“I am concerned that we do not have readily available data to determine how many convicted violent or sex felons, currently facing another violent or sex charge, are in our community corrections system,” said Ferguson. “My intention is that this proposal will start an overdue conversation about how we can ensure these programs are transparent and accountable for public safety.”

“We have numerous examples of defendants who are charged with violent or sex offense felonies who are then rearrested or escape while they are in community release programs,” said Justus. “These are the types of individuals that we are gravely concerned about.”

In making pretrial release decisions, the courts currently rely on data collected by the county’s intake services unit, who interview the defendant. This data collection is limited, however. According to a 2009 report on the county’s pretrial release practices: “Currently, unit interviewers know what information they can report using their mainframe computer system, and simply ask questions designed to get that information, and nothing more…this often results in judges, prosecutors and defense guessing about missing information. Guesswork cannot support risk assessment.”

The report further found that “prior record information… is typically confined to the year of the case and a non-specific charge name... judges are often left to guess whether the charge was a felony or a misdemeanor.”

The county’s juvenile court successfully uses a risk assessment tool for the juvenile population. In 2007, the County Council directed the Office and Management and Budget to review the screening, processing, and monitoring procedures of community corrections alternatives to secure detention for the adult population. OMB recommended that the County consider a risk assessment tool to ensure that detention and alternatives are used appropriately. A Pretrial Risk Assessment Work Group recommended the development of an assessment tool after finding that a risk assessment tool would have multiple benefits, including:

• Protecting public safety by identifying higher risk defendants,
• Increasing efficiency by better organizing intake reports, speeding up pretrial release decisions, and better managing the jail population,
• Reducing the likelihood of biases that might result in disproportionate confinement of minorities or other groups or individuals, and
• Helping the public better understand the pretrial decisions that are made.

“This moratorium is not a perfect solution, but it advances the county towards the goal of implementing a risk assessment tool to better identify high risk individuals,” said Ferguson. “There is widespread agreement that such a tool will enhance public safety in our communities, and I am determined put it in place as quickly as possible.”