Join us for Town Hall Meetings!

Public safety in King County is in peril. Your criminal justice elected officials are hosting a series of town hall meetings in your neighborhood to discuss the issue. It is critical your voice is heard!

Sheriff Sue Rahr	Prosecutor Dan Satterberg	Judge Bruce Hilyer	Judge Barbara Linde

Why is public safety in peril?

For the past several years, King County's criminal justice agencies have worked hard to create an efficient and effective criminal justice system. Crime is down and criminal cases are investigated, reviewed, filed, and resolved without significant delay. We offer innovative programs such as Drug and Mental Health Court and provide important victim services.

In addition, we have the capacity to house all offenders who pose a risk to public safety, provide an array of jail alternatives for certain low-level offenders, and offer constitutionally required health services for inmates.

The King County Executive has announced that there will be a significant shortfall in the County’s general fund. The King County Sheriff’s Office will be required to cut approximately 11.4%, more than $10 million, from our 2009 budget. The Executive predicts that this will be a multi-year problem with annual criminal justice cuts projected through 2012.

The Sheriff has been forced to make some tough decisions. As she says, “It’s like having to choose between the steering wheel and the brakes on your car. Neither option is good.” Our highest priority must be responding to and investigating person-related crimes such as rape, robbery, assault and homicide. In order to maintain the most critical public safety services – those required by law – the Sheriff must recommend significant reductions in other areas.

What will the reductions look like for the public?

These cuts would likely result in the loss of dozens of deputies and staff, resulting in discontinued or reduced services to the public.

Possible cutbacks include:

• Eliminate the investigation of property crimes valued under $10,000
• Eliminate the investigation of most frauds, internet crimes, bad checks cases, etc.
• Eliminate centralized drug investigations
• Eliminate the centralized investigation of domestic violence
• Eliminate “cold case” investigations
• Reduce services in neighborhood storefront centers
• Reduce hours of public services such as gun permits
• Reduce outreach services for youth and victims of crime

What cost-saving measures have we already begun implementing?

1) The Sheriff has already imposed tighter restrictions on the use of overtime:

• Non-emergency calls will wait through shift changes, leading to longer response times.
• Fewer detectives will be called out for investigations.
• We are auditing all of our tactical responses to see if we can safely reduce the number of SWAT members we can deploy for high-risk tactical incidents.

2) We are in the process of developing online reporting capability, expected to be completed later this year. This will enable citizens to file police reports online.

3) We are starting the development of communications networks with citizen groups so that we can either enhance or, if necessary, replace our neighborhood storefront deputies with the virtual crime watch groups.

What can I do?

Be a well-informed citizen. Visit the links to the right to find out more about this issue and related topics. Also, please join us at a community meeting in your area. Lastly, you can contact your county council member and state legislators to share your concerns.