Maintaining Community Safety In Tough Budget Times

At a time when the State of Washington is facing an unprecedented $9 billion budget deficit, the Washington Association of Prosecuting Attorneys (WAPA) and the Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs (WASPC) have united and offer the following suggestions to save money, but still maintain public safety:

• Cut Department of Corrections (DOC) Supervision for some offenders.  Recent studies by the Washington State Institute for Public Policy (WSIPP) show that there is limited benefit in supervising low risk offenders.  These studies, coupled with our reliance on supervision over incarceration, mean that budget cuts targeting supervision do the least harm to public safety.

• Shorten DOC Supervision.  Studies show that supervision is most effective when implemented immediately upon release from prison or jail.  A moderate reduction in supervision length saves money and does not seriously impact public safety so long as the remaining supervision term is meaningful.

• Maintain Prison Capacity.  Cutting our state's prison capacity while still renting prison beds in other states for Washington inmates makes little sense.  According to a recent PEW study, Washington is the 13th largest state in the country, but ranks 44th in its use of incarceration.  Preserving our State's limited prison bed capacity is a public safety priority.

• Maintain law enforcement funding to verify the addresses of sex offenders.  This program has been successful and should continue.  In the first six months of the program, over 500 sex offenders were not at their reported addresses.  There were 244 resulting prosecutions.  The current $10 million state-wide budget for this program is necessary to maintain public safety.

• Maintain Dedicated Funding for Auto Theft Prevention.  This dedicated funding from traffic fine assessments has been used to form task forces across the state that have been very successful in reducing the number of reported auto thefts.  However, WAPA and WASPC support a one-time $4 million diversion from this account to fund gang intervention so long as the remaining funding remains intact.