Seattle City Council Public Safety and Human Services Committee Meeting 7/25/23

The July 25th, 2023 meeting of the Public Safety and Human Services Committee will come to order.

It is 9.30 a.m.

I'm Lisa Herbold, chair of the committee.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

Council Member Mosqueda?

Present.

Council Member Nelson?

Present.

Council Member Peterson?

Present.

Vice Chair Lewis?

Present.

Chair Herbold?

Here.

Five present.

Thank you so much.

On today's agenda, we will hear an update on the Northwest Abortion Access Fund.

We'll also be hearing from the city auditor and hearing about the findings of their report, the city can do more to tackle organized retail crime in Seattle.

We'll be receiving an update on the pre-filing diversion expansion pilot that the council funded for individuals 25 and over.

We'll be hearing from the human services department and the city attorney's office.

And then closing out our agenda today, we'll be hearing from the uh, folks who were involved in developing, um, a, uh, a report on domestic violence response.

And this, uh, group is referred to as the Seattle Community Responses to Domestic Violence Work Group.

And the report is entitled Transformation is Possible.

We'll now approve our agenda for our committee meeting today.

If there's no objection, today's agenda will be adopted.

Hearing no objection, today's agenda is adopted.

This time we'll move into public comment.

I'll moderate the public comment period in the following manner.

Each speaker will receive two minutes to speak.

I will alternate between virtual and in-person commenters.

I'll call on each speaker by name and in the order in which they registered on the council's website in the sign-in form.

If you've not yet registered to speak, but you'd like to do so, you can sign up before the end of the public comment session.

Once I call the speaker's name, if you are using the virtual option, we ask that you listen for the prompt, and once you've heard that prompt, please press star six to unmute yourself.

We ask as well that you begin speaking by stating your name and the item on the agenda which you are addressing.

And speakers will hear a chime when 10 seconds are left of the allotted time.

Once the speaker hears that chime, we ask that you begin to rack up your public comments.

who do not end their comments at the end of the allotted time provided will have their mic muted after 10 seconds.

so that we can facilitate hearing from the next speaker who has signed up.

Once you've completed your public comment, we ask that you disconnect from the listen line, or from the comment line if you are commenting virtually, and we do encourage folks who are commenting virtually once you've disconnected from the line to continue following the meeting, and you can do so via the Seattle Channel or the listening options that are listed on the agenda.

We have four people signed up for public comment.

Three of them are virtual, and one is in person.

We will go first to the in-person public speaker, and I will call on folks' names two at a time.

First, we have Carolyn Malone in person, and Carolyn will be followed by Howard Gale.

I'm Carolyn Malone speaking about police, continuous police brutality.

But in addition to police harassing me, firemen have joined in to pray in solidarity and collusion.

with police, in addition to that, AMR drivers.

And these people took an oath to serve and protect, not impede lives, interfere with lives.

And because of my outspokenness and activism, I'm a target.

I brought photos to take of firemen constantly running ahead of buses I ride on, preventing me from crossing the streets by turning on their sirens, so I will wait and allow them to cross, even though there is no emergency.

I push back.

There's an article in Real Change called Derailing the Defunded, how police try to manipulate the media with their narrative about the 2020 protests.

These police live in my building occupied space.

That is the essence of my protest, because police do not belong in senior housing.

committing crimes, harassment, and setting up surveillance on me.

And because I stand on street corners, protest in front of my building, protest, then the sirens go off daily around me.

How many of you see three, four, seven times firemen circulating around you?

All I need to do is go down to 4th and James and firemen will come and turn on their sirens.

I will continue to protest Seattle police.

I know some council people support them, but you are not an activist and you don't live with cops on your property.

I do.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Howard Gale and Howard will be followed by David Haynes.

Howard.

Good morning, Howard Gale with seattlestop.org.

Last week, we learned from Real Change News about the scandal with a federal court monitor whose responsibility it is to independently assess progress with our police accountability system, but instead has been revealed as a public relations arm of the SPD.

This is far from the first and will definitely not be the last scandal that reveals the dysfunction, corruption and malfeasance of an over $10 million per year faux accountability system.

In 2019, an investigation supervisor at the OIG became a whistleblower and was fired when revealing OIG's failure to properly scrutinize OPA investigations.

This wasn't reported on until a second OIG investigations whistleblower came forward, as revealed in 2021 by reporters at KUOW and the South Seattle Emerald.

Further reports by these news outlets in 21 and 22 revealed the depth of malfeasance and corruption at both the OIG and the OPA revealing OPA director Andrew Meyerberg's entire professional past as a defender of police misconduct, a city attorney who falsely prosecuted a paraplegic black man who was a victim of police violence, prosecuted him for assault, engaged in prosecutorial misconduct resulting in court sanctions, and violated numerous health privacy laws in trying to undermine protests or complaints against the SPD in 2020. All of this makes SPD violence of 2020 look inevitable.

as will be the next such outbreak when people take to the streets to protect police abuse.

All of this is inevitable when council members perpetuate a system of faux accountability and actively work to suppress any revelation of system failures while suppressing and discrediting whistleblowers.

Everyone's attention is now turned to the hideous displays in an SPD break room 31 months ago, but we fail to even note SPD's near murder of a black teen less than six months ago or yet another instance of SPD shooting a person in mental health crisis just last week.

Yet last week, you voted to give more money and power to the CPC, which like OIG and OPA, remains unaudited, unaccountable, and hostile to the community.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is David Haynes, and David will be followed by Jane Dix.

Thank you, David Haynes.

Why is it that the Public Safety Committee continues to run interference for repeat offending, customs violating, low level dollar amount drug pushers who destroy other people's lives daily, who are creating all these junkie thieves stealing from everyone.

And then the drug pushers, they get on a list exempting, they're exempted from jail, no need for bail, and yet no trespass and questioning of the drug addicts to find their misdemeanor suppliers to shut down the drugs.

Instead, only people who steal from Target and other businesses are questioned by the cops, as cops are doing corporate fascist America's bidding to protect Wall Street, middlemen profits, so big business can save money on inept private security.

They're wasting police crime fighting on helping corporate America protect their inflated products, while the whole time still looking the other way on all these drug addicts who are connected to the underworld suppliers, who have all been listed low-level nonviolent misdemeanor by council, who continues to run interference for drug pushers.

It's the crux of everything that's wrong with our society.

City council is using taxpayer dollars to buy off people who are totally unqualified, who are circumventing and co-opting our judicial system, that act like they're experts after a month or two of training who decide the fate of all these people who are criminals and troubled souls whose happiness has been stole, who like to roll on other people while we don't have the proper punishment and we don't have the proper treatment.

And yet you're still running interference for drug-pushing criminals who created all these junkie thieves.

It's like this public safety committee is one of the most two-faced hypocritical committees in Seattle.

It's obvious that George Soros, the evil billionaire that's trying to destroy America, has permeated Seattle's politics and policies.

And city council is redirecting tax money to literally run interference for repeat offenders while buying off a whole bunch of protesters hiding behind unqualified nonprofits, trading money for re-election support.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Jane Dix.

Jane is showing as not present.

And Jane is the, I believe the last speaker that we have signed in to give verbal public testimony.

Just giving another few seconds for Jane before we close out public comment for today.

Seeing Jane as present.

One more time, still not present.

So with that, it is 9.42 AM and our public comment period is closed.

Moving on to the first item on our agenda.

Mr. Clerk, can you please read in item number one?

Agenda item one, Northwest Abortion Access Fund Update.

Thank you so much.

Just a few introductory remarks as you take the table.

In 2022, in response to leaked news that the Supreme Court planned to overturn the right to abortion in its ruling on Dobbs v. Jackson, Women's Health Organization, this council moved quickly to shore up legal protections for people seeking abortion and to increase access to safe abortion services.

There were predictions that with this disastrous overturn of the Roe decision, Washington could see a large increase in patients from out of state.

seeking reproductive health care, enough to flood clinics across the state, including clinics here in Seattle.

At that time, local providers were already reporting patients seeking care here from as far away as Texas and Louisiana.

In May of 2022, council passed a resolution that called for adding funding to support abortion access.

I offered an amendment at the recommendation of advocates in public health to direct those dollars to Northwest Abortion Access Fund, which provides logistical support, care, and safety for people seeking abortion here.

Mayor Harrell answered the City Council's call by including $250,000 for Northwest Abortion Access Fund in the 2022 mid-year supplemental budget.

Council approved that.

And then in the budget cycle, thanks to the leadership of Council Member Morales, the city made an additional $1.25 million investment in abortion services.

These are the first time, these are the first ever of the city's investments directly in abortion services to help ensure that abortion remain safe and accessible in Seattle.

It's a historic and unfortunate historic moment in basic health care that too many pregnant people in other states are now being denied.

Because of the way that these services are being provided locally, the Human Services Department added these funds in its contract to public health.

which has in turn contracted with Northwest abortion access fund to provide the intended services.

So really glad to have you with us here today.

Representatives from both the Human Services Department and King County Public Health to provide an update on these investments.

Thank you very much for joining us.

Ask just a quick round of introductions and then go right ahead and kick it off.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Herbold.

My name is Heather Mason, and I am the Sexual and Reproductive Health Services Administrator for Public Health Seattle-King County.

Thank you for having me here today.

Good morning.

My name is Jeff Tsukuma.

I'm the Health Integration Strategist with the Human Services Department, and part of my role is to help oversee our contract with Public Health Seattle-King County.

So as we start any discussion on sexual reproductive health, we always like to ground in into our collective commitments to all people managing their pregnancies according to their own wishes, by accessing quality reproductive and sexual health services, including safe and timely abortions.

We want to uphold the value that every person has the right to their own bodily autonomy.

I also want to share with you in our update about the Northwest Abortion Access Fund, a little bit about the post-Dobbs country landscape, since this impacts Washington's growing access for other states for residents to receive abortion care.

So as you can see in this map from Guttmacher Institute, as of May 2023, They have categorized from most restrictive to most protective abortion policies for states.

And Washington in May was sitting at protective, so not the very or most protective, although that does not take into consideration the recent state legislature acts, which we know had many gains for protection and funding for abortion access in Washington state.

I want to say also in this moment, a huge thank you to the City of Seattle for its investment and protections it has put in place since post-DAWB.

So thank you very much for this funding and the effortless work you are providing in ensuring access to sexual reproductive health services, primarily abortion services in Seattle and King County.

I also want to point out what current data we can get to understand what the volume is.

Unfortunately, we don't have King County or Seattle data.

What we do have is statewide data as of March 2023. The Society of Family Planning, an organization that disseminates funding and scientific information on abortion and contraceptive access, has noted the increase that Washington State has experienced since post-Dobbs in abortion services.

So roughly about 16.5% between April 2022 and March 2023, which equates to about 290 abortion procedures per month more so than when Dobbs, for Dobbs overturned Roe v. Wade.

With that, I'm gonna pass this over to Jeff Sakuma to speak more specifically about the Seattle investment.

Thank you, Heather.

This is a little bit of a repeat of what you mentioned, Council Member, in your introduction, that in over the course of the past two years, part of 2022 and 2023, we have made between the city and the county an investment of about $2.25 million.

to the Northwest Abortion Access Fund, 1.75 coming from the city and about 500,000 coming from the county.

That started in 2022 with about 750,000.

And then in 2023, where, as you mentioned, the city added another 1.5 million.

As you know, we have a longstanding contract with Public Health Seattle King County that's administered to the Human Services Department and that allocation directs that 90% of the funding go for direct services and then 10% for indirect costs for NWAA.

that the funding is to be directed to be used to coordinate payment and or logistics for medical care, travel, and accommodation for individuals accessing abortion services in our region.

A little bit more information about sort of what we know to date through reports from Q322 through Q1 2023 that NWAAF has supported 757 individuals in accessing abortion services locally.

As of Q1 2023, NWAAS spent $819,382 of the blended 2.25 million funds.

72% of the funding paid for medical services and 28% paid for travel and lodging.

75% of the funding for medical services went to Seattle-based providers.

And 45% of the individuals served were non-Washington residents traveling to our state for abortion care.

And NWAAF is projecting that they'll spend all but about $300,000 by the end of 2023 for carryover in 2024. Turn it back over to Ed.

Thank you, Jeff.

We've also been able to get some more qualitative information from the Northwest Abortion Access Fund in their reports, which gives us a little bit more insight into who they're serving.

I do want to just point out first and foremost, you can imagine how sensitive and important it is to protect the identity and information of individuals accessing these services.

So there's a limitation with what we know.

Some of that includes demographic data, unfortunately, but we wanna protect these individuals from their home states criminalizing surveillance bans that are included in their abortion restrictions.

So what we do know about these folks is that the Northwest Abortion Access Fund has almost doubled in their callers volume of out-of-state folks, which comprises now about 35% of all their callers.

So that's a jump for them.

post jobs, we know, and we anticipated this, and it's unfortunate, but we are seeing pregnant people having to travel farther for their services, as well as being farther along in their pregnancies.

So these are more complicated cases in some cases, which increases the amount of funding for medical care and traveling needed because they have to stay longer where they get the abortion services.

So it's more expensive.

So the median grant size per caller is increased about 27% due to these factors.

The other thing that they have noted, which I think we all could have anticipated and we've seen locally as well in our service delivery is people are really confused and afraid of the information around abortion access or lack thereof.

So there's a lot of need to continue to help people understand what the laws are, especially in Washington state and the access that's available to them.

With that, I am gonna move into questions actually.

We saved a lot of time for questions assuming you would have some Appreciate your time here bringing us up to speed on how the investments of both the mayor's office and the council are being To deliver these basic health care services just checking.

I have a couple questions, but just checking in my colleagues first go ahead Um, so, um, you mentioned, uh, the, the map that shows that, um, sort of the rating, um, of the advancement of, um, our, um, our policies, uh, as compared to other states.

Uh, could you just maybe, I understand that there, it may not, the map may not have been totally updated, um, to reflect current, uh, law in Washington State, but are there particular that we are missing in Washington State that you would like to highlight for us?

Absolutely.

Thank you for that question.

A couple to consider, and I know it's near and dear to your heart, Councilmember Herbold, but definitely, unfortunately, the Keep Our Care Act, which really helped hold hospital mergers accountable to ensuring services for sexual reproductive health, end of life, and gender-affirming care is one priority that we would like to see the state pass.

So that did not pass this past legislative session, but hopefully will gain momentum in the next round.

The other area that did not pass this legislative session was a constitution amendment for reproductive freedom.

So that's another assurance that we would like to see in place.

And then lastly, which is a harder one, and then the King County Council has done some work around is the limited service pregnancy centers also really holding them accountable to their practices.

The city has done some work around that as well, but recognizing that with, In the city of Seattle, there aren't a lot of those facilities.

There are still some practices that have been brought to our attention.

As relates to the limitation on hospital mergers or the regulation on hospital mergers, do other states have legislation like the bill that we've been trying to pass in Olympia for the last few sessions?

It is not clear how successful other states are.

California had had some versions.

I'm not sure it's held up in court.

So I am not the content expert to really give you the detailed information, but can get back to you on that for sure.

I appreciate that.

As it relates specifically to the funding that the city has provided recently and the other funding that you receive from other jurisdictions, what can you say about the ability to meet the needs, the capacity to meet the needs?

Are we able to serve everyone in need or are we having to turn folks away?

It's a great question.

My understanding so far, we've been able to meet the need, but that doesn't mean without delay of care in some cases.

So I don't feel like there's people being turned away, but I think there is this perfect storm of the full scope of sexual reproductive health services being limited if a lot of our capacity is going to that.

abortion provision side.

I will also say that the state will be disseminating the $21 million that they allocated for abortion access across the state in the next biennium.

I think that's going to help ramp up some of our abortion providers to be able to meet the demand better.

Thank you.

And as you mentioned before, delays result in less safe medical procedures and more expensive medical procedures as well.

I have a follow-up question to that.

Sure.

Council Member Nelson, by all means.

I noticed that there is a carryover from this year into next year, 300,000.

And so is it just difficult to get the money out the door?

Because I want to make sure that we are meeting all the needs.

So why is there a holdover?

Great question.

I think it's a combination of things.

One, yes, I think it's not a difficulty getting out the door, but it's how much demand they're experiencing and they're projecting growth.

But there are other organizations at times that have supported abortion access too.

So they're not the only source.

They're the primary source in our area.

I think the largest area of support for the Northwest Abortion Access Fund, it's a predominantly volunteer run organization.

I think it needs some additional support and infrastructure to meet the demand that they're experiencing.

And so that 10% indirect, which is required, is not enough to fully keep them at full capacity to meet the growing demand.

And so I think that's what the carryover is also referring to, is a need for further hiring some actual full-time staff for their organization to support them better.

Thank you.

Appreciate.

the highlighting of the situation with the fact that this is a largely volunteer-staffed organization historically.

So that's a really important thing to recognize.

And given that there is funding that is allowed for needs other than direct services.

Have some of those funds been able to be used to sort of do capacity building within the organization?

Yes.

I mean, the 10% helps that.

We're also looking at with the newer set of funds for 2023, amending their contract to pay for some more direct service provision on the staffing or capacity building side, which I think may result in not having that carry over and better support the organization, but that's in progress.

And given, of course, that demographic information about those you serve is highly confidential, can you give us a sense of from how far away maybe some of the folks that are traveling to get our services here are having to travel?

Yeah, definitely.

It's kind of surprising.

Florida, for example.

I mean, just to give a clear distance example.

Primarily, we're talking about Idaho, Texas, some of the neighboring states that we know have the most restrictive, but we have seen folks coming from Tennessee, Florida, pretty far distance.

And I just want to note that the folks who are accessing these services are truly uninsured.

do not have other means with which to access these services or travel.

So I think the Northwest Abortion Access Fund's really truly serving the most marginalized folks that are restricted for access.

That is just incredible.

Other questions from folks?

Any online?

I'm not seeing any virtual raised hands.

Just a closing question, just generally, is there anything that you've learned from this initial investment from the city that you'd like to share with us for our consideration in future funding conversations?

Yes, thank you.

And I do want to echo my gratitude and appreciation and thank you for your commitment to abortion access.

I think lessons learned here, the Northwest Abortion Access Fund is a great organization for individual support.

And I think our abortion providers thankfully are getting funding from the state.

I think there's room for community engagement, more community-based strategies across the state as well, because if we think about our own residents maybe having delays of care and or confusion or misinformation, there needs to be more around how to get the word out and to navigate them to services and understanding their barriers in the future.

Thank you.

Really appreciate you taking the time to give us an update on this big priority for this council, as well as Mayor Harrell.

Really appreciate the work that you're doing to ensure ongoing abortion access in Seattle and elsewhere.

We know that abortion is health care.

So thank you.

It is health care.

That's right.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

All right, moving on to item two on the agenda.

The clerk, please read in agenda item number two.

Agenda item two, city auditor report, the city can do more to tackle organized retail crime in Seattle.

Thank you, Mr. Clerk.

As folks join us at the table, just a few introductory remarks from myself and Councilmember Lewis.

Last year, Councilmember Lewis and I requested that the city auditor conduct an audit regarding retail theft in Seattle.

All elected officials were being contacted by businesses across the city about retail theft.

It continues to be a very serious problem, adversely affecting real estate.

retailers throughout the city.

All five police precincts are included in the chart that you'll see in the report showing the 10 most affected retail locations for SPD service calls.

Organized retail crime impacted Seattle the eighth most of any city in the nation in 2021. according to the National Retail Federation.

The Washington Retail Association found that within the past year, more than half of Washington state retailers have reported an increase in theft, resulting in $2.7 billion of losses in the state.

And in 2022, there were 13,000 calls to SPD from the top 100 retail locations in the city, the large majority which were related to retail theft.

Responding to those calls cost police officers almost 19,000 hours of time, which is equivalent to the annual work performed of nine full-time police officers.

The report has a lot to say about what we can be doing differently.

With that, I'll turn it over to Councilmember Lewis, in case he'd like to make some additional introductory remarks, and then we'll hand it over to our panel.

Thank you.

Thank you so much, Chair Herbold, and thank you for your collaboration on this issue that has been a really big issue as we work towards the post-COVID recovery of downtown, and indeed, over the past decade, has been a significant issue when I'm talking with retailers in my district of the rising sophistication, organization, and threat that is posed by organized retail theft in our commercial core.

not just in our metropolitan area, but across the country.

The only thing I'll preface my remarks with is just really appreciate the thoroughness and professionalism of the Office of the Auditor.

I'll use this opportunity to flag again, as the legislative branch of government, one of our best partners in putting focus and attention on issues of extreme public importance.

to get thorough recommendations of proposed action is to partner with our auditor's office, and I will continue to fight on this council to adequately resource our auditor's office to be able to provide the service on a more regular basis.

I think what we see in front of us and what will be evident as we go through the presentation is By coming together and doing this deliberative work, we have put forward several very impactful recommendations that will help us make progress on this, not just as a city, but with intergovernmental cooperation with the King County Prosecutor and other local agencies.

And I think it really shows, there were some corners of the media when we initially requested this that interpreted our request for an audit as Maybe that the council was not aware of organized retail theft being a problem.

I think that represents a fundamental misunderstanding of what auditing and performance auditing is.

Rather, it's a way for us to do a deep dive into multifaceted and complicated public policy challenges.

to bring to the fore ways that we can grapple with it.

And I think that what we've learned over the past decade is organized retail theft is not a simple challenge to meet and to defeat.

It requires the collaboration of multiple levels of government.

It requires the engagement of the city council and the mayor, but also federal partnerships.

And that's what really comes out in this audit and helps give us the game plan to come to terms and to grips with this problem that is facing our downtown and facing merchants all over the city of Seattle and our region.

And really look forward to this report back and this discussion this morning to kick off our next steps to make progress on our shared goal of getting rid of this scourge of organized retail theft in the city of Seattle and beyond.

So thank you so much.

Thank you.

I appreciate those opening remarks and appreciate your initiative in this area, Council Member Lewis.

So before your presentation, do you mind just doing a quick round of introductions?

And then I think we're going to return after those introductions to the City Auditor, David Jones, to kick us off.

My name is David Jones, Seattle City Auditor.

Claudia Gross Shader.

I'm the Research and Evaluation Director at the Office of City Auditor.

Good morning, Mark Johnson.

I'm the Senior Vice President of Policy and Government Affairs for the Washington Retail Association.

Heather Marks, Executive Director of Strategic Initiatives at the Seattle Police Department.

Good morning.

Patrick Hines, Chief Deputy with the King County Prosecuting Attorney's Office, Division of Economic Crimes and Wage Theft.

And Tani Milner, I'm the Major Economic Crimes Section Chief of the Washington State Attorney General's Office.

Thank you all for being here.

So I'd just like to start it off by thanking Councilmember Lewis and Chair Herbold for requesting our office to do this audit on organized retail crime.

Without your request, you know, who knows if we would have done it.

It's an important issue, but your request from two of you made it a high priority for our office, so thank you very much.

I just want to quickly say to members of the viewing audience that if you want to see the report or download it, you can go to our website, which is Seattle.gov slash city auditor slash reports slash 2023. So now I want to turn it over to Dr. Claudia Grosch Schader, who will run you through the report.

Claudia was in charge of this audit and her PhD is in criminology, which was extremely helpful in her work on this particular audit.

Claudia, please.

Thank you, David.

And thank you for having us here today to discuss our audit of organized retail crime.

We may refer to it as ORC throughout the presentation.

What is organized retail crime?

There's not a universal definition of ORC, but it generally involves an organized effort to steal merchandise and convert that merchandise into financial gain.

In ORC operations, there are generally boosters who steal goods on behalf of fences.

Fences then sell the merchandise for profit.

ORC does not include petty theft or poverty-driven crimes.

There's evidence that ORC has increased in recent years because online marketplaces can be used to resell stolen goods.

ORC operations can be large or small.

For example, a single individual might act as both a booster and a fence and steal power tools, for example, and then resell them online.

Other ORC operations can involve billions of dollars of stolen merchandise and can be linked with other serious crimes, including narcotics trafficking, human trafficking, money laundering, even terrorism.

Our audit doesn't address all aspects of ORC, but we focused our analysis rather on fencing operations that underlie organized retail crime.

Fencing is the practice of reselling the stolen goods through online marketplaces, unregulated markets, such as illegal street markets, storefronts that buy stolen goods and buy shipping goods for sale outside of the United States.

ORC is a concern for all retailers in Seattle, no matter what size.

We're happy that the Washington Retail Association is here today, and they're enthusiastic about working with the city on the steps outlined in our report.

The Seattle Police Department, who's also represented here, is also looking forward to working with other city agencies and other stakeholders to implement these recommendations.

ORC is affecting Seattle Police Department resources.

As Council Member Herbold mentioned in her opening remarks, we found that in 2022, Seattle police responded to over 13,000 calls for services from 100 Seattle retailers.

And responding to those calls for service cost police officers over 18,000 hours of time, which is the equivalent to the annual work of nine police officers.

It's vitally important for retailers to report these crimes to the police.

This helps the police understand the magnitude of the problem, it helps the police prioritize how to direct their limited resources, and it helps the police build cases that can be prosecuted.

However, the steps that we outlined in the report recognize that the Seattle Police Department has limited resources.

and also sometimes the most effective strategies for addressing organized retail crime don't fall to the police alone.

Therefore, our seven steps for improving the city's approach to ORC include leveraging the power of collaborations, as Council Member Lewis mentioned, using technology, and also making changes to the physical environment.

Okay, step one, we found that city staff currently do participate in collaborations with other agencies that can really address ORC.

These collaborations include the ORC Task Force in the Washington State Attorney General's Office and the Washington Organized Retail Crime Association.

Also, just a shout out to the King County Prosecuting Attorney's Office.

They were just selected to participate in a national initiative to address crime around retail establishments.

And this will be another opportunity for the city to collaborate.

We recommend that the city could get the most out of these collaborations by improving our own internal coordination around organized retail crime.

And this could include creating a list of ORC cases that the city wants to prioritize.

Also making coordinated requests for assistance to these other groups based on city priorities.

Step two, our second step builds on this theme.

Crime analysis can support ORC investigations.

And the U.S.

Department of Homeland Security has made ORC a priority.

Recently, in October of 2022, they created an initiative called Operation Boiling Point.

And this operation is designed to pursue ORC investigations.

This also includes an analytics group that can support local governments, including Seattle.

So this could be especially useful for help with investigating Seattle fencing operations with known international ties.

I mean, for example, one of the things that we learned is that a bottle of perfume may be stolen in North Seattle, and within 24 hours, it is on a shipping container destined for sale overseas.

Step three, we learned from law enforcement officers from other jurisdictions that boosters can be an important source of information on fencing operations.

However, the Seattle Police Department does not routinely gather information on fencing operations from the boosters.

We recommend that this work be prioritized and it's another area where Homeland Security has offered resources to help with interviews if needed.

Step four, we also recommend that the city look at new ways that technology can be used to improve ORC, both in the reporting and in the investigations.

One example from our work or from our audit is rapid video response, which instead of sending a police officer to a call for service in a patrol car, the caller has the option of doing a video call with a specially trained officer.

Rapid video response in England has been shown to have a response time that is 656 times faster than the typical patrol response, and it provides greater victim satisfaction.

So we recommend that systems like rapid video response be considered as the city replaces its outdated retail theft reporting system.

These systems could be more efficient and more effective in responding to ORC.

Step five, some fences sell goods out of physical locations or like storefronts or at illegal street markets.

And to address those fencing operations, our report recommends that the city consider working with the surrounding community on place-based strategies.

This would include changes to the physical environment, like lighting and storefront improvements.

Our audit includes a link to an excellent report that was developed by Seattle Police Department's own Barb Biondo, who is the Crime Prevention Coordinator for the West Precinct.

And this report details 68 place-based improvements for 12th and Jackson that could reduce crime, including the illegal street markets that operate at that location.

Step six.

Patrick Hines is here today from the King County Prosecuting Attorney's Office.

And during the course of our audit, Patrick's colleague, Nicole Lawson, developed a checklist of information that is needed to prosecute ORC cases successfully.

The King County Prosecuting Attorney is willing to train SPD and city staff in the use of the checklist, and we recommend that the city take King County up on its offer.

Step seven, we also recommend that the city lend its support for legislation that can better address ORC.

And this includes a proposed Washington State Senate bill, it's pictured on the left.

The proposed legislation, among other things, would provide tax breaks for retailers to pay for physical improvements for security.

Finally, we'd like to acknowledge the great collaboration that we've had on this report and in developing these recommendations.

First of all, researchers from the Center for Evidence-Based Crime Policy and also from the Loss Prevention Research Council provided input on our report.

And then all of the agencies who are here today also reviewed the report.

In addition, the report was reviewed by Homeland Security Investigations and the mayor's office, and they all provided helpful feedback on the report, and we're really grateful for the collaboration.

Hopefully, this will be a starting point for the city so that we can together work towards positive change related to organized retail crime.

And with that, I will hand it over to Mark Johnson from the Washington Retail Association.

Well, thank you, Claudia and Madam Chair, members of the committee.

Again, Mark Johnson representing the Washington Retail Association.

We have members large and small throughout our states, many with operations in Seattle and King County.

I'm here today in enthusiastic support for the organized retail crime report and recommendations submitted by the Seattle office and the city auditor, especially Dr. Claudia Gross Shader.

I'd like to also commend Councilmembers Lewis and yourself, Madam Chair, for asking for the audit in the first place.

We think it was a wonderful idea.

The Retail Association's number one issue for the last several years has been public safety, retail theft, and organized retail crime.

The safety of our employees and our customers is paramount to retailers.

Our team members and shoppers have to feel safe when they come to our establishments.

Many of these crimes are becoming more and more aggressive and violent.

Secondly, the financial impact of these crimes is staggering.

The National Retail Industry Leaders Association estimate that over $100 billion is stolen each year from retailers across the nation.

That equates to about $2.7 billion in Washington state.

which means about $300 million is lost in sales tax and B&O taxes each year for state and local governments.

As was mentioned, no one strategy will solve this problem that has plagued our community, state, and nation.

Rather, it will truly take a multi-pronged approach to thoroughly and permanently change the direction of this challenge.

This report embraces that concept and provides real solutions.

The seven steps and ten specific recommendations are well thought out and we think will yield significant return on investment.

In particular, as was mentioned, exploring new technologies such as rapid video response will allow retailers to better report incidents, save police resources and time, and provide valuable data for investigations and help decision makers target strategies.

It is critical to remember that in order to break the cycle of organized retail crime rings, preying on our vulnerable populations, suffering from mental illness, substance abuse disorder, housing insecurity, or a combination of them, we have to provide them with treatment they need and deserve as an alternative to putting them in jail or taking them to a hospital where they're not equipped to help them.

We're very excited and optimistic that the recent announcement by our partner, the Retail Industry Leaders Association, that Seattle and King County will serve as a pilot program called Vibrant Communities, which purpose is to address safety concerns of employees and consumers by launching a coordinated effort to address these issues and provide real, lasting solutions that can be replicated across the country.

Seattle truly will be serving as a model for the rest of the nation.

I'm very excited about this report and appreciate all the hard work by the council, by the auditor's office, and our partners here.

It gives me great pleasure to turn it over to our next presenter, Heather Marks with the Seattle Police Department.

Heather?

Thank you so much, Mark.

It's a pleasure to be here.

Chair Herbold and members of the committee, thank you for including us in this presentation.

Just to start off, I want to let you know that the mayor's office as well as the police department staff assisted the auditor with this project, and the mayor supports the implementation of all ten of the report's recommendations.

The mayor recognizes that organized retail crime is a significant issue in our city, and the auditor's recommendations should be implemented as soon as possible, recognizing our limited resources.

I want to also say that the Seattle Police Department works routinely with retailers as well as other agencies from the federal all the way down to our local partners to address organized retail crime.

In addition, we spend a great deal of time disrupting those street markets that Claudia mentioned with place-based strategies, particularly 12th and Jackson is a location that maybe everyone's familiar with.

And we absolutely look forward to partnering with our sister city agencies to implement some of those SEPTED recommendations that our Barb Biondo identified in her report.

Thank you so much.

And it gives me great pleasure to hand it over to Patrick Hines from King County Prosecutor's Office.

Thank you.

Good morning again.

Madam Chair and members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to be here today.

My name is Patrick Hines.

I'm a Senior Deputy Prosecuting Attorney with the King County Prosecutor's Office.

I currently serve as the Chief Deputy of our newly formed Economic Crimes and Wage Theft Division.

Prior to that, I was the Unit Chair of our Economic Crimes Unit within the Criminal Division.

The Prosecuting Attorney's Office has long recognized the harmful impact of organized retail crimes.

It significantly and negatively impacts large and small businesses.

It forces small businesses and even some not so small businesses to close because they simply cannot afford the losses both economic in terms of cash or in terms of merchandise that these crimes create.

It's also true that particularly repeated crimes of these natures often involve either significant violence or a significant threat of violence, and that threat, that scare, that injury done, seriously impacts both store employees, shoppers, customers, members of the community.

Put simply from our perspective, organized retail crime is a public safety issue, and it's one that we take very seriously.

For a number of years, the PAO has had a dedicated deputy prosecuting attorney who, as part of their caseload, was the main point of contact for retail crimes cases.

In June of 2021, that position was expanded so that there is now a deputy prosecuting attorney whose full-time job it is to work exclusively on these cases.

And that person serves primarily as the point of a spear.

They're not the only person doing this work.

They're the person who's doing it full-time.

Also earlier this year, Lisa Mannion, our elected prosecutor, made the decision to take the economic crimes work being done by the criminal division and create a new division, the Economic Crimes and Wage Theft Division, to handle that work.

There were a number of reasons for doing that, but one of the most important was to provide a unified focus and approach to economic crimes.

including retail crimes within our office, and to bring greater accountability to organized retail theft crimes and the defendants who commit them.

So these are cases that we at the PAO take very, very seriously and are committed to doing our part.

And part of that commitment is to being good partners to other groups that work in this space.

That obviously includes the Seattle Police Department and others involved in the city's response to organized retail crimes.

It involves our law enforcement and community partners throughout the county.

What I think is important to note from this report issued by the city auditor's office are two, what I see as themes that kind of underline a number of the suggestions or lie behind them.

And that is, these are crimes that require collaboration to significantly impact.

And I see that as a through thread running through a number of the recommendations.

This will only work if there's collaboration between the county and the city, between the county and the state and everyone involved.

And I think we are on track to do that, particularly with the formation recently and funding of the Attorney General's Office Organized Retail Crime Group that I will leave it to the next speaker to talk about.

But I think that collaboration plays a huge role.

As part of that, the county is very excited to have note taken in the report the PAO, of our willingness to do trainings and to put out documents like this checklist, because that is a point where collaboration and efficiency overlap.

Because the Seattle Police Department is working very, very hard on these cases.

The committee heard the numbers involved.

What we need to push out is to be better at being more efficient, I think.

And part of that is for us to communicate, here is what we need in order to successfully prosecute one of these cases so that that effort, that tremendous amount of time isn't wasted or isn't spent pursuing things that we don't need and missing things that we do.

And I think it is very, very helpful to have all of that noted in this report.

The PAO is looking forward to conducting trainings, to putting out training modules, both for the Seattle Police Department, for retailers, for our community partners, and anyone else who is interested in seeing them.

I'd like to thank the Auditor's Office for doing this work and bringing to further attention this very important issue, for giving us the opportunity to provide input and to be here today.

Thank you very much, and I will now turn it over to Danny Milner with the Attorney General's Office.

Thank you, Patrick.

Again, my name is Tionny Milner, and I am the new Major Economics Crime Section Chief of the Criminal Justice Division in the Washington State Attorney General's Office.

The Attorney General Ferguson convened an Organized Retail Theft Task Force last year because organized retail crime impacts all of Washingtonians and its economy.

The task force includes AGO representatives from several different divisions, including the Policy Unit, the Consumer Protection Division, and the Criminal Justice Division.

And that task force has representatives from state, local, federal law enforcement, small and large businesses, and retail workers.

The goal of the task force is to improve coordination and collaboration amongst law enforcement agencies to address these multi-jurisdictional crimes that endanger the employees and cause significant economic harm to our state.

The legislature recently funded a 10-person unit within the Washington State Attorney General's office, and that funding is for starting this year and then will continue on to next year, so we're adding more people.

In total, we'll have two prosecutors, four investigators, a data analyst, and three paralegals.

We are currently in the process of hiring the team leader of the Organized Retail Crimes Unit, and then we'll be hiring a second prosecutor, two investigators, and a data analyst to help with this issue.

The goal of our unit will be to assist with investigations, to coordinate investigations amongst multiple jurisdictions, to deploy resources where they are needed most, and to prosecute cases that are referred to our office by county prosecutors.

With the input of stakeholders, the task force and the organized retail crime unit will continue to be shaped and we're currently having quarterly meetings, the next of which is in August, August 15th.

We continue to look forward to partnering with Seattle to address this issue.

Thank you.

Thank you.

really appreciate all the care and thought you've put into the work that you do every day, as well as joining us here today to let us know more about it.

Thank you so much.

Do my colleagues have questions?

Council Member Lewis, please.

Thank you so much, Chair Herbold.

One of the big recommendations that really caught my eye to come out of the report was the analysis of the rapid video response that was included.

Obviously, the application to organize retail theft.

I agree would be incredibly effective.

And for those viewing who might not be familiar, my understanding is that it's a way to do an alternative form of essentially a police consultation and reporting a crime where an officer appears via video.

Basically, doing a report via Zoom, in a sense, rather than doing it in person, provides an opportunity for critical evidence collection to be uploaded at that time.

via upload videos and pictures in that process to be a part of the report.

656 times faster than a patrol response in the experience of Kent.

And this is Kent in the United Kingdom, not Kent in South King County, just to clarify that.

The application of that potential reform to all property crime seems to be pretty compelling.

The impact survey that is attached to the auditor report indicated significant victim satisfaction, indicated an increase in arrest rates for people who are committing property crimes.

I call that out because it's one of the things that falls fairly squarely in the city's component of what is gonna be required in this inter-jurisdictional collaboration to get a handle on organized retail crime.

And we have everybody at the table here who's part of that ecosystem.

I guess we're missing a federal partner today.

But beyond that, we've got county, state, city people at the table.

But this is one of the things that falls on our end of it, which is the initial investigation of retail theft.

So I guess my, first my question would be if there's anything else the auditing team wants to provide around rapid video response to explain a little bit more about that potential policy and the the linked, the cited, I should rather say, report in the audit to the experience in Kent and the United Kingdom where this has been an effective strategy.

You know, I'd love to hear from the audit team a little bit more about that.

I would also love to hear from the Seattle Police Department about their thoughts on rapid video response and how that might be a component in our work to continue to strive to increase customer satisfaction in the city and also increase the efficacy of our response to a variety of property crimes including organized retail crime.

So maybe first the auditing team and then I would love to hear from SPD on their thoughts on rapid video response as a tool we might use.

And as part of that response, if you don't mind just sort of wrapping in just a lay person's explanation of what it is.

I think from our pre-briefing, it sounded very much like it's sort of FaceTiming in a way.

But it would be helpful, I think, to get a little bit more texture on what rapid video response is.

Yes, so I'll start with that, Councilmember Herbold.

And you got it right.

It is very much like FaceTiming with a police officer.

In our report, as Councilmember Lewis mentions, we link to a rigorous evaluation.

It was the gold standard evaluation done by the University of Cambridge.

It was a randomized controlled trial.

And so that conclusively showed that rapid video response was faster and more effective than the traditional patrol response.

We also link in our report to an application of rapid video response in San Antonio.

It's being used by the fire department there for medical calls that are non-emergency calls.

So to give it a little bit more texture, what happens is a caller makes a call for service to the police or the fire department, and if there's a protocol that dispatch follows to make sure that that caller is safe and that it is not an emergent, urgent issue.

At that point, the callers offered the option, would you like patrol response, which in the case of Kent, England, could be three hours later, or three days later, or sometimes the patrol response falls through the cracks altogether.

So would you like the patrol response as usual, or would you like the rapid video response?

And if they choose rapid video response, they are provided with a link to basically a video call, like a Zoom call or a FaceTime call.

And so then they are speaking with an officer who's been specially trained to handle these calls.

and they walk through another set of protocol.

In the case of retail theft, this could also include uploading photographic or CCTV evidence from the loss prevention staff directly to SPD.

So that gives you a little bit of a flavor of it.

Council Member Lewis, one thing that I would like to add from the experience in Kent, England, I was able to meet with some of the folks from Kent, England, and they said that one of the unanticipated benefits of the rapid video response was in officer retention.

Rapid video response is the perfect fit for an officer who may be on light duty.

And in Kent, England, it is a good fit for some of the officers who are also working parents and need a little bit flexible schedule that doesn't include patrol response.

So they have found that it had an unanticipated additional benefits of officer retention.

Um...

There is the link to the rigorous evaluation, as Council Member Lewis mentioned.

And it's not the only opportunity for the city of Seattle.

Heather can talk about this a little bit.

But the Seattle Police Department is currently looking at replacing its online reporting systems.

And so there may be myriad opportunities for the city to increase its effectiveness and efficiency related to retail crime reporting.

Thank you so much.

And before we hand it over to Heather Marks, just a reminder for council members in the viewing public, we did have Assistant Chief McAfee come and brief us in February on the existing retail theft program.

So really appreciate that the department has been considering learnings from the use of the program and hearing feedback from members of the public and following up on some of what we had a chance to learn in February.

Thank you.

Absolutely.

Thank you so much.

The Seattle Police Department is, of course, game to try anything that's going to make our response better.

As usual with anything in public policy, heaven is in the details, and so we're looking forward to drilling into this a little bit farther with our partners in the city auditor's office.

There are also surveillance ordinance implications here.

And so we just were interested in digging in a little farther and seeing how it will work.

Thank you.

And that's part of the reason why I asked sort of for the layperson's explanation of what this is.

Given that it is technology that is not used to surveil but to report, Have you done any initial lookings into whether or not the surveillance ordinance would be implicated in any way?

Well, so we haven't dug into this much at all.

I just know that any time we have a technology like this, we have a process to go through.

I don't have any knowledge about whether or not it's going to be required to go through the full surveillance process, but we certainly would need to submit a privacy assessment, and then the decision would be with Seattle IT.

I would just add, oh sorry, I would just add Council Member Herbold that I mean if you like from reading the Cambridge deep dive I mean people consent to accepting the video call which would make it it's not like they're subjected to the call against their consent.

I would think that it would get through the surveillance ordinance but yes that's something we'd obviously want to do.

Council Member Nelson.

Thank you very much.

I'll return to the surveillance ordinance point in a sec.

But first of all, I just want to thank you very, very much for completing this report.

I've been waiting for its release for a long time.

And I have to say that last December, your 2022 year-end report was released.

And you noted on the status of 143 recommendations contained in 29 reports.

that as of December 31st, 75% of those recommendations had not yet been implemented and only, let's see, 22% of the recommendations or 31 out of 143 had been implemented.

And I mention this here because, first of all, I imagine that must be frustrating, but more to the point, I'm putting in a plug for 100% of these recommendations to be implemented.

And I'm going to, you know, I'll advocate for that because I agree with them and I support them.

And as Economic Development Chair, I've been, you know, really concerned about what's been happening to small businesses.

So, I want to speak to a couple of these recommendations and, but first, a couple comments.

I really appreciate the recognition of the role that substance use disorder plays, especially when it comes to driving some of the boosting activity that we're seeing.

And so I've often made the point that there is an intersection between substance use disorder and crime, and so I do appreciate the validation, and I'll be working on, you know, continuing to work on treatment.

On page nine of your report, you note that Auburn, the city of Auburn reduced its, reduced ORC by 30%.

Offline, I wanna know exactly what they did, because I think we should just do that.

I say that without knowing how they did that, but so please remind me to get in touch with you and learn.

And then, I must note, however, that they might not be as understaffed as we are, their police department.

And one thing you don't note in your report, but you have in other reports, is the staffing issue at SPD.

So, and Chair Herbold and I have, encouraged many times that we step up our recruitment efforts.

So, knowing that, I will get to my point.

So, you mentioned throughout your report some of the things that were said in the Small Business Roundtable discussion in my committee last year in February, and we had another one.

So, thanks for paying attention at the last Small Business Roundtable.

They reiterated their point that they would like someone in the mayor's office to work across departments to triage complex situations involving crime.

And they said behavioral health issues.

What they went on to emphasize is primarily those behavioral health issues that are driven by substance use disorder.

But my point is that Recommendation one is in fact creating a central point of contact.

And so their recommendation in their report was, let's see, they say something like, let me find that.

The mayor's office should have a dedicated person who understands the complexity of the issues caused by repeated criminal activity or behavioral health issues and could play a key role in triaging complex situations.

That was from February 2022. Offline, I'd like to talk a little bit more about how you see this central point of contact.

It's not just to work with across departments in the city of Seattle, but also with the county and presumably with the state as well.

So to be continued on that, I think that's a priority, which is probably why you put it as number one.

Anyway, let's see.

And then...

So we were just talking briefly about the surveillance ordinance.

And now I'm getting to step four, slide seven, which has to do with technology.

I advocated for the lifting of the proviso on salary savings that was imposed last fall, in part to provide resources for the acquisition of technology.

In the mid-year supplemental, there will be an allowance for the use of the salary savings for a better reporting system.

Now, when it comes to other technologies, I just wanted to lift it so that they could spend those resources on whatever they need to help with the crime situation.

But when it comes to the surveillance ordinance, To what extent, or are there other cities that you encountered that have restrictions that prevent the use of technologies that you see in other jurisdictions that could really help in the absence of a fully staffed police department?

Or I guess just more directly to how When you're reading what other cities have done and you know of our regulatory environment because it was already brought up in this meeting, do you have suggestions for ways that for small improvements that could help us have the best of both worlds, both the protections of the surveillance ordinance and better tools at our disposal?

Thank you, Council Member Nelson, for that question.

Just a note to the public, and I know that you and the other members of this committee are aware, Um, In terms of surveillance technologies or surveillance technology ordinance and that ordinance says every year there shall be After the council approves new surveillance technologies and we and I should say we've had to do some catch-up on legacy surveillance technologies The ones that don't have anything to do with the seattle police department our office covers The office of inspector general headed by inspector general lisa judge they do the police department technologies.

So, in trying to answer your question and give you really good information, I'd want to loop in the Office of Inspector General, but I, and I'd love to do this offline and take a little more time to think about it.

If we could do anything to better achieve that balance that you talked about, like, you know, protecting people's privacy and civil rights, which is the intent of the Surveillance Technology Ordinance, but also not letting that get in the way of use of technologies that could help people in our city.

Okay, thank you.

Have I addressed your question?

Yep, you have.

And I know that Will and Heather mentioned that you might be diving into the real-time video, or I can't remember the precise name of the technology that prompted this question, but wanting to know whether or not We'll get back.

I would like, I also would like to know whether or not that is possible within this framework.

I certainly, because we're still looking at technologies that the city has already acquired, not new technologies.

So anyway, don't want to get in the way of that process.

What were you going to say?

Yeah.

And that's particularly true, just to say for the office of inspector general with police, there, there are a lot more technologies that involve the Seattle police department that are defined as surveillance technology ordinance.

So they, I'm gonna take a guess here, they have roughly twice as many technologies that they have to review as we do.

And for our office, it was a heavy initial load to do those initial reviews of surveillance technologies.

And I know the Information Technology Department is thinking about, is the current ordinances, the current process, the most efficient one, the best one at getting what we want out of the ordinance, could there be any possible improvements?

So always happy to participate in that conversation and I would love to talk to you about it offline.

Okay.

Thank you, David.

And Council Member Nelson, if I may, I can respond to a couple of your points that you mentioned.

I agree with you 100% that our recommendation number one is very complementary with the request made by the Small Business Task Force.

So that's definitely something to dig into a little bit more.

Regarding the 30% drop in organized retail crime that was experienced in Auburn, I can tell you this, this was a case where they really did focus on the fencing operation.

So they dismantled the fencing operation.

We heard this time and time again from law enforcement that we talked to.

dismantling the fencing operations is like cutting off the head of the snake, and it can be extremely effective in reducing organized retail crime.

So this, and Mark might be able to speak about this more, Jerry Larum talked about it at a recent meeting of the Washington Organized Retail Crime Association where he really detailed the case study of exactly how they did this in Auburn.

And again, it required a lot of interagency collaboration.

But taking down or dismantling those fencing operations can be very successful.

And then finally, regarding the technology, just a plug for rigorous evaluation.

I think any time we implement a new technology, we should evaluate it rigorously to make sure that it is having its intended benefits.

Is it more efficient?

Is it more effective?

Is there greater satisfaction from the people who are served?

So.

May I jump in and just say one more thing?

I'm going to pass it over to you.

Thank you.

Just to your point, Councilmember Nelson, about recommendations, we're proud that in the long term, since we started tracking implementation of recommendations made in our audit reports, I think it's roughly 75% eventually get implemented.

However, in the short term, I think the statistic you're feeling about, there's a lot of stuff that's pending.

But I just want to assure you and the members of the public that every year we come back to our recommendations and we follow up on them to see whether or not they've been implemented.

I like to say we're kind of like a dog with a bone.

I mean, we're not going to give up tracking it until there's a definitive conclusion to the recommendation.

Either it's been implemented or partially implemented or it's not been implemented.

And that latter category often touches on many reasons from outright refusal to lack of resources to change in circumstances.

But we will be following up on those, and that's our goal to 100% implementation.

I was just trying to own some of the responsibility notice on your reports.

Absolutely.

They're the recommender and the departments are the implementers, but we can lift the recommendations up and use our role to help that happen.

So thank you for recognizing that annual report, which is really helpful in amplifying the recommendations of the city auditor.

Councilmember Peterson, I see your hand up there.

Thank you, Chair Herbold.

Thank you to my colleagues who requested this report from our city auditor.

Appreciate the city auditor noting on page 6 of the report that I think it was back in February of 2022, Council Member Nelson convened her Economic Development Committee to lift up this issue of retail theft as well.

Back then there was a written statement from neighborhood business districts.

I have several in my district, including the university district.

They, they wrote that, you know, there's been an uptick in crime and behavioral health issues across the city neighborhood business districts are getting hit hard and need help from our city leaders.

And that was back in February of 2022 and and I.

I believe that small businesses are still struggling in our neighborhood business districts I recently was talking to the target in the on the app and the university district which is suffering from retail theft as well.

It's been one thing after another as we know first the pandemic and then this ongoing epidemic of retail theft.

and it's not only the loss of their products they need to sell to stay in business, but also the increasing security expenses that they're having to come out of pocket for and increased insurance expenses.

We also heard this in Councillor Nelson's committee from small businesses.

There have been businesses in my district that have closed due to retail theft as well.

And I, you know, I'm concerned about the loss of police detectives when we talk about the defunding movement against the police department and then losing 400 plus officers.

It's not just the nine one one officers that were on patrol, but we also lost dozens of detectives.

And I just want to clarify page twenty one of your report.

It says that there's one detective in SPD general investigations unit assigned to retail theft is where there.

Was there previously more than one detective back in 2018, 2019, or was retail theft not an issue then?

Just seems like there need to be more detectives assigned to this work as well, in addition to the excellent coordination and technology we're talking about.

I think that's a question for the police department.

Yeah.

Your question is, do there need to be more detectives assigned to organized retail theft?

Yes.

Well, I mean, that's certainly an outcome.

We are doing our best to juggle the priorities that come to us from the community to make sure that we are serving all the people in a good way.

I'm really looking forward to working with Claudia about implementing some of these recommendations to see if some of these ideas can help us do a better job with organized retail crime as we move into the future.

And Council Member Peterson just to clarify on page 21 there is one detective, who is assigned to the retail theft reporting program.

And that's the online program that spd is current the Seattle police department is currently.

looking to replace, but it is the online system where loss prevention officers can write a report.

And there is one detective who is assigned to that program in particular.

There are other detectives who may investigate organized retail crime cases in the general investigations unit and in major crimes.

That's right, Claudia.

There's one person who handles this online reporting, but all the detectives in general investigations are available to investigate those organized retail crime.

Chair, may I ask a follow-up?

Absolutely.

Just an information request from the police department, if we could get information on the number of detectives we had in 2019 versus the number of detectives we have now and how many of those in 2019 were investigating retail theft versus now.

That would be helpful to just know directionally how well staffed we are in that area.

Thank you.

Happy to produce that.

Thank you.

Thanks so much and thank you Councilmember Peterson for reminding us that Councilmember Nelson's briefing in her committee assembling small business owners was in February of 2022. The briefing in my committee about the retail theft program in February that also was in 2022. And I only say so to note that in that briefing with Assistant Chief McCaffey about the existing retail program, we noted at that time, a year and a half ago, the steep declining of use of the city's retail theft program.

So that has been flagged.

I'm happy to hear that we're looking at new ways to encourage more use of that program in a way that's considered consistent with best practices.

I have a couple questions.

the King County Prosecutor's Office and a couple for SPD and one for the City Auditor.

So the audit, first for the King County Prosecutor's Office, the audit analyzed 2021 and 2022 data about organized retail cases that were prosecuted by the King County prosecuting attorney.

In 2022, there were 49 of those cases.

I'm wondering if you could just say a little bit about the relationship between the number of arrests for organized retail crime and the number of prosecutions for the charge, and how does King County compare to other jurisdictions in this regard?

I think a large portion of that question we are probably going to have to get back to you on, just because it will take some data analysis on our end.

One of the issues that we face from sort of a data reporting side of things is, There is no one crime that these cases get charged with or arrested for or booked with.

And I think this is noted in the auditor's report.

There is the organized retail theft statute, but it applies in certain sets of circumstances.

And depending on what actually happens in the store, in the real world, case could be arrested, booked, or charged as one of almost a dozen different statutes.

And so it sometimes takes a little bit of sifting through the data, and it's not always possible to figure out exactly how that plays out.

For example, one charge that frequently gets booked on and referred to us on is burglary in the second degree, because if someone goes into a retail establishment in violation of a trespass order in order to commit a theft, that is a burglary.

But it's the same thing if it's any other burglary in the second degree.

And so sometimes going through to parse out which one of those are actual retail crimes versus some other form of burglary can be a fairly significant data analysis lift.

So that's a little bit of a very hard question to ask, or sorry.

Easy question to ask, hard question to answer.

One of the things that we have been doing at the PAO has been to attempt to introduce a flagging system so that when a case comes in and is a retail crimes case, it is flagged as such.

But that is a relatively new thing and it does create some issues for us comparing current data to historical data before that was implemented.

That's all a long-winded way of saying I don't know the answer to your question right now, but part of the reason why it's not the sort of thing that I can easily answer on the spot because it does require us to do some looking.

I will follow up on that and provide some information.

Thank you.

I'm just wondering, on the sort of data collection side of things, There's reference in the audit report to your best practice of the checklist, the questions checklist.

And so I'm wondering, is the data collection piece around a case easier if the questions that are in the checklist are asked and answered in a way that makes it potentially easier to find those sorts of details?

to flag cases, or is the checklist used in a different way?

And I'm just misunderstanding.

The checklist is more used in a different way.

One of the things that we have noticed is there are some very basic things that we have to have in order to file a case and to prove a case.

There are an awful lot of retailers, some of which are big retailers that have a dedicated and well-trained loss prevention staff, some of which are mom-and-pop corner stores where they don't have that.

And a lot of times across those boards, people don't necessarily know what it is that we actually really need to prove a case in court.

By the same token, you know, patrol officers are doing a lot of different things on a day-in, day-out basis and are doing a very good job, but they don't always know what to ask for.

I think one of the things that in any number of areas has been borne out is the idea that no matter how well trained you are, having a checklist is important because it reminds you of all of the things that you need to get.

What we are trying to develop is something that increases efficiency and bridges that gap between retailers and law enforcement and us by being able to say to everyone at every step of the way, if you're the retailer and you suffer one of these crimes, here's what we're going to need.

So when law enforcement shows up, whether it's patrol showing up or you using this new system to report to law enforcement, here's what you need to give them.

We want to train law enforcement so that when they talk to retailers, they have the same information.

Here's what you want them to get, we want you to get from them.

And then here's what we need to get.

And really to break down that idea of here's what we need so that we don't have to take a report from law enforcement and say, okay, here are the four things we need you to go back and get.

And to make it come through all at the same time.

That's that point of that checklist.

Perfect.

Thank you.

So a question for you, Claudia.

Looking at the report, On page 17, the findings around problem-oriented policing, it refers to the fact that problem-oriented policing has existed since the 80s.

and that the department has not systematically implemented it.

You note the fact that the limited experience with problem-oriented policing was seen as a limiting factor in a pilot project designed to address two downtown Seattle crime spots.

We heard about the CEPTED recommendations for 12th and Jackson developed by Barbie Ondo in SPD.

So it seems like SPD has the expertise and understanding of how the surroundings at a place where there is crime are intrinsically linked.

to the activity of crime.

And so it appears to me that the department does understand that, but yet the finding is that there is something essential in the department as far as their experience that is missing.

Heather noted the need for, I think she referred to them as sister departments.

to cooperate with and support the implementation of recommendations of SEPTED improvement.

So it doesn't seem like it's wholly in the responsibility of SPD to see that problem-oriented policing is fully implemented.

But just if you could tell me a little bit more about what At the police department, we should be supporting in order, as well as advocating with all these other departments like City Light and Parks to address the surrounding conditions that the department is not able to oversee and implement themselves.

Oh, no, that's a question for Claudia as somebody who's done the research on problem-oriented policing and made the finding or recognized other folks' findings that there was a lack of experience in implementing problem-solving policing, problem-oriented policing.

Thank you, Councilmember Herbold.

I'll try to be brief with this, and it looks like Heather may want to jump in, too.

And I also would like to recognize that this is a much bigger topic, and we could probably have an entire other hearing on really problem-oriented policing, but it's a both-and.

I think that there are definitely things that SPD could do to improve its capacity to engage in problem-oriented policing.

And it's also something that the Seattle Police Department can absolutely not do on its own.

So, for example, there are 68 recommendations in the report.

It's crime prevention through environmental design.

That's SEPTED.

And it is a SEPTED report for 12th and Jackson that was produced by the crime prevention coordinator for Seattle's West Precinct.

And I believe in the report we mentioned that three of those recommendations, three of the 68, have been implemented so far.

Those included some broken streetlights and some new streetlights.

But there are other recommendations that will require cooperation and collaboration from sister agencies.

So, for example, one of the recommendations that has not been implemented to date is to increase the visibility of storefronts, the sight lines from storefronts looking out.

So some of the storefronts in the area have signage that obscures the view from inside the store to out onto the street.

And having those eyes on the street is an evidence-based crime prevention technique that provides natural guardianship.

So there is business education and maybe support to the small businesses that the city could provide to help improve the sight lines out onto the street.

Another one of the recommendations that hasn't been implemented so far is coordinating with Metro to replace the, in the bus stations, to replace the panels with clear panels that are tamper-proof and graffiti-proof, but are clear, again, to increase the sight lines.

And there's also a recommendation in there about providing some lighting at those metro bus stops.

So these are all things that are evidence-based changes to the physical environment that can help disrupt crime at place.

And so that does require collaboration among city agencies.

It also, when it's most successful, requires somebody to quarterback it, someone who can really make sure that all 68 of those recommendations get either discussed and or implemented.

So that's missing currently from the city right now.

And I wouldn't say necessarily that that responsibility needs to fall to SPD.

That said, the important steps in problem-oriented policing really begin with a kind of analysis phase.

And that is something where the Seattle Police Department could build its capacity to really use the data that Seattle Police Department collects, use data that it gets from the people that they interact with at a site, and really do a kind of a diagnostic at the place that would include physical changes, but also would include some of the understanding that only law enforcement can offer.

So there is the need for SPD, and this is something that SPD is in agreement on.

There's some need to develop their own internal capacity, and there is some need for the city to develop its capacity for more collaboration to take these ideas to the finish line.

Thank you.

Hand it over to Heather Marks.

Perhaps you can fold in to your response to that question.

An update, I know Chief Diaz has been working with the Evidence-Based Crime Policy Center at George Mason University to do an assessment of all of the investigative units.

Maybe you could just give us a little update on where that's at as well, because I think it's very linked to this question of building the capacity for problem-oriented policing.

So we're expecting that report from George Mason just any minute now.

And once we've had a chance to go through it and identify the changes that we need to make, within our own organization.

I think we're gonna be in a better spot to discuss that, but I'm sure when that time comes, we'd be happy to come and present.

I also wanna note that we are continuing to build our capacity in this evidence-based and problem-oriented policing.

Some nascent efforts that you may know about are what some call emphasis patrols at 3rd and Pine as well as 12th and Jackson.

And one of the important parts about problem-based policing is that you have to identify and then track the results.

And if the results with the tactics that you're using are not working, then you need to change them.

And so that's an ongoing conversation that is happening in both of those locations about how we need to change up our tactics.

And also sometimes a deeper dive into what the numbers mean.

So for example, One of the things that happened in the wake of our increased presence at 12th and Jackson is we found that calls went up.

Now, initially, one might think calls going up is not a good thing.

You want fewer calls.

Ah, but if the community, those additional calls actually mean the community trusts the police department to address the problems that they're calling about.

This increased number is actually a good thing.

So we are continually going through those locations where we have some focused problem-based policing going on and addressing those tactics and updating those tactics to fit whatever data is coming back to us.

And so that's something that we are absolutely building our capacity in.

And then my last question is a two-parter.

One, I understand the resource limitations that SPD has and the reason for prioritizing addressing violent crime.

when asked by the city auditor, you did acknowledge that you are investigating some of these cases.

And so my question is, if you are investigating some of those cases, why is it in those cases the checklist isn't being used?

It's not, I think it's not a capacity problem because these are cases that you are investigating.

So maybe you could just say a little bit about, maybe not looking backwards, maybe looking forwards, whether or not the intent is to use this checklist moving forward.

And then secondly, as it relates to the in-custody interviews of boosters, we've received an offer of help from other law enforcement agencies.

Does SPD intend to take those law enforcement agencies up on that offer to help with these very important interviews?

Well, I appreciate the opportunity to give you a prospective answer rather than a retrospective one.

I think that the police department needs to sit down with our patrol leadership as well as our investigations leadership to really go through all of these recommendations thoroughly and see what we can do quickly and see what's going to require some additional training or allocation of resources.

For example, the rapid video response, that's probably a longer term.

But I think questions about how to better use, thank you, the checklist is something that we could probably fold in more quickly.

And so I, speaking for Claudia, I'm sure that You know, in some months, we would be happy to come back and report sort of where we are with respect to the recommendations.

And there may be some other agencies that, other sister agencies that you might want to bring in to have some of those conversations.

Great.

Thank you very much.

I'm sorry, may I add one thing just about the checklist?

Absolutely.

I just want to make clear that from our perspective we have seen absolutely no indication of pushback against the checklist.

This is not an issue in our mind at all about SPD not wanting to do it, pushing back against it.

This is about penetration and getting that message down to the patrol officers who need it.

That is in many ways as much on us because we can be pushing it harder.

And I don't know, you know, this was not a checklist that was designed specifically for SPD.

This is designed for all of our law enforcement partners throughout the county.

And I think we have a role to play in helping to make sure that SPD rank and file gets that message as much as SPD leadership does.

But I do want to make clear, this is not an issue of pushback or disagreement.

This is an issue of rolling it out and getting it to the people who need it.

Appreciate that.

Thank you so much.

So I'm looking to see if there are additional questions.

Council Member Nelson, I see a hand.

Is that an old hand or a new one?

No, it's a new one.

Okay.

So it's not often that we have someone from the Attorney General's office here.

So this is directed at you, Ms. Olson.

But before, no, Ms. Milner, excuse me.

Before that, I do want to just follow up on this conversation because one question in my mind that ran through the discussion about police pop, as I call it in my mind, problem-oriented policing.

Also, the use, questioning of boosters and other things.

I was wondering whether or not the fact that the jail is not accepting bookings for for anything, misdemeanors, except for DV and DUIs right now, perhaps that is a disincentive to do some of these extra steps when on patrol, but I can take that question offline.

So when you think about this discussion, you are involved at the state level, and so you see what is working and what isn't in jurisdictions across the state.

And we've had a couple bills, well, I think there were two and maybe three in 2022, perhaps there was one in 2023. that were put forward by the legislature that did not pass.

What would you suggest would be a priority piece of legislation to advance progress in ORC across the state?

So our policy unit is responsible for that I think it's important for us to look at that aspect of it, which is part of the reason that we formed the task force in order to help with that legislation to determine what would be the most helpful changes and to roll out that sort of communication.

The AG's office has commented on different legislation that's gone forward.

you know, whether we're talking about prosecution, are we talking about reducing the effect in the beginning, like which part of the intervention, prevention, and prosecution are we looking for?

And I think that's a very complex question and a very complex answer.

And we have to look at it through a very wide lens, which is what we're in the process of doing now.

So part of what we're doing at our next meeting is to address some of those directions.

How does the task force, statewide task force, want to move forward to best address this issue.

And that can be policy changes, that can be resources, targeted resources, it can be part of the education component, because it is, there is an education component that people don't understand in prosecution.

What evidence do we need?

What evidence is admissible?

And are there changes that need to be made, or do we need to make in legislation, or do we need to make those changes in the way that we police and enforce policing.

And that's really why the task force was created and why we're getting that feedback now.

So I'll have a much better answer for you in the coming months and years.

And I look forward to partnering with the city to help promote some of those, make those legislative changes as needed.

Thank you.

Madam Chair, may I add to that?

This is in my kind of wheelhouse as a lobbyist for retail theft.

There were four bills that were introduced in the legislature that I'll just touch on briefly.

One was 5259 that Claudia mentioned.

And that would be providing grants, especially targeted to small and mid-sized businesses for theft deterrent devices.

We think that's a really good step.

Three others was theft with concealment and intent to steal.

Another one was multiple accomplices, which is targeted exactly at organized retail crime rings.

And the final one was theft by habitual offenders that continually steal multiple, multiple times.

And so those are four bills that we support and we think would be really helpful.

if the city's inclined to help us with those.

Thank you.

My office, since the city auditor's report has come out, has flagged the recommendation regarding supporting state legislation to the Office of Intergovernmental Relations.

So I'm happy to sort of facilitate those conversations if there's anything additional that we can do.

Thank you so much.

Absolutely.

All right.

Well, again, thank you, everyone, for your time.

As I expected, it was a big conversation, a lot covered today, a lot more to cover.

Again, really appreciative of taking the time to be here with us.

And just also want to thank the auditor for their their engagement in their collaboration with so many stakeholders in this area.

Thank you.

All right.

Mr. Clerk, can you please read the next item on the agenda?

Agenda item three, prefiling diversion expansion pilot for individuals 25 and older.

Thank you so much.

As folks from the Human Services Department and the City Attorney's Office are joining us at the table, I will make very quick introductory remarks.

In 2017, the City of Seattle began a pre-filing diversion program for young adults.

That was for ages 18 to 24. In the 2021 budget deliberations, the council provided funding for an expansion for this program to folks who are 25 and older, and that was, those funds were provided in the 2022 budget.

It has taken some time to get the, expansion up and running, but we are so pleased that we are at a critical stage in launching that expansion to an older cohort.

And, you know, throughout this process of Selecting the contractors, developing the contracts, and getting out the door.

I've been in touch with the Human Services Department about when would be a good time for this briefing.

And today is the day.

I'll hand it off to the Human Services Department and the City Attorney's Office for their presentation.

And if we could just do a quick round of introductions first, and then jump into the presentation.

Sure.

Good morning.

Thank you very much Councilmember Herbold and the Public Safety Committee for allowing us time today to present with the Human Services Department on pre-filing diversion expansion.

My name is Natalie Walton Anderson.

I'm the criminal chief for Ann Davison at the Seattle City Attorney's Office.

I'm Amy Larson, supervisor of the pre-filing diversion unit.

Farrell Love Swanson, the data analytics manager for the City Attorney's Office.

And I'm Annie Lee, interim deputy director for HSD.

Thank you.

You want to start?

Go ahead.

Okay, so we're going to get right into it.

So I want to give a brief overview of the Pre-Filing Diversion Unit before I turn it over to Amy Larson, who is the Pre-Filing Diversion Unit Supervisor.

There are other members of our Pre-Filing Diversion Team, Maria Manza, who's in the audience today, and also Naomi Karasawa, who is watching virtually.

And I also want to acknowledge that the City Attorney's Office, the Criminal Division, also has other diversionary work that won't be highlighted today.

We have prosecutor liaison-led positions through programs such as LEAD and LINC, which is the Legal Intervention Network of Care Division that supports individuals with behavioral health concerns.

they're also part of this work.

So the Pre-Filing Diversion Unit, what it is, why we do it, and how it's working, it is essentially an alternative to filing what would traditionally be a misdemeanor crime process through the Seattle Municipal Court.

And so instead, we receive a referral, there's immediate connections to services in the community, and if that intervention is successful and the right response is found, it reduces the impacts of crime on our community.

Pre-filing diversion, just to be clear, is a really important part of the spectrum in the ways in which the criminal division handles cases.

It does not work for everyone, but it can.

and has shown to be successful with the right introductions to services and the right connections.

So this administration has fostered this expansion work and we've increased the diversion referrals as you will see in the data that will be shown later on in this presentation.

But I want to talk specifically about the work that our pre-filing diversion unit, meaning the two prosecutors and our paralegal have done, in the last year to really expand this work.

I think, first of all, they've made a lot of connections in the community.

They have talked with a myriad of providers.

They've made those introductions to the Human Services Department.

They've helped those community providers navigate just city government and how you get introduced to Human Services Department.

try and execute those contracts and give them necessary information so they can get those contracts moving.

But making those connections with the human, with those community providers takes a lot of effort and work.

And we really believe in a diversion model that where we are, we understand what the services are and how those community providers connect.

So Amy and her team have met with the staff.

They've talked through and listened to the curriculum, the methodologies in which the community providers engage individuals, and also their outreach efforts.

And all of us have gone on site visits to actually visit the providers where they are providing care to the individuals that we refer.

Amy and her team listen to the success stories, and they work through the challenges with those community providers.

They brainstorm ways in which to improve the success and also how they can do better in terms of outreach.

And ultimately, they've brought those providers to our criminal division where we have had office-wide trainings that our entire division or office have participated in.

And the goal of that is to make sure our entire office, including our criminal division, is aware of community services that are in the community.

So I want to introduce you to the team.

Amy Larson, who I've mentioned, is a supervisor.

Maria Manza, who is in the back, and she's one of our lead prosecutors.

And also our paralegal Naomi Karasawa.

Naomi is crucial to this work as well because she increases our contact and communication with crime victims.

She listens to them.

She listens to the impact that these crimes have had.

We do that and we support that work so that we don't contribute to victims continuing to feel invisible in terms of diversionary work and continuing to feel invisible in terms of our criminal legal system.

But before I turn it over to Amy for the rest of the presentation, I do want to express my deep appreciation for the partnership and communication that the Seattle City Attorney's Office has had with the Human Services Division over the last year.

And I just want to say thank you to that.

Thank you.

My name is Amy Larson.

I'm supervising this unit.

If you look on the left of this PowerPoint slide, I'm just going to quickly do an overview of what our program looks like.

So every time a misdemeanor crime is committed in the city of Seattle, we will get that referral from the police department.

to decide in our office if we're going to proceed with charges.

So between Maria, my colleague, and myself, we have almost 20 years of experience as prosecutors, and we've done extensive RSGI training to view these cases with a racial equity lens.

And we make the decisions on whether or not a person is appropriate for which provider within our programming.

And Natalie did mention our paralegal does a lot of work talking with the victims about the impact these cases, these situations have had on their lives, as well as kind of educating them about what diversion is, how it often actually ends up working better than what they would get through the mainstream system.

Maria and I then do take very seriously and take into account the victim's perspective on these cases before we decide who to refer.

Once that decision has been made, the participants have two months in which to complete the diversion programming.

At that point, if a person successfully completes the program, we decline to file charges.

So there's no interaction at all with the court system.

We also found through the RET that we completed, as well as our own data, that there was racial disproportionality in only offering pre-file opportunities to people.

So we now also offer one chance post-file once the case has been filed to give the individuals an additional chance to engage and participate in that way.

Something that's unique and interesting about this work is we found that there's a lot more human connection between these providers and the individuals and what they would get through the court system.

For example, with Choose 180, they have two aftercare staff full-time who follow up with these young people after they complete for up to a year.

doing job training skills, mental health treatment, whatever kind of services they need.

This is a timeline just quickly on the history of pre-filing diversion.

So we had support under the prior administration to do this work.

We've continued to have support under this administration.

Our first contract was with CHOOSE 180 in the fall of 2017. We've had no interruption in service since that time.

We did an RFP in 2021, and Gay City was awarded the next contract.

They're now called Seattle's LGBTQ Plus Center.

That's for non-intimate partner domestic violence cases, and we've worked with them for the last two years.

And then with the transition to a new administration, we were met with support and enthusiasm to continue to expand the work of pre-filing diversion.

So when the contract moves to HSD in the spring of 2022, we spent a lot of 2010 and 2022 developing a great relationship with HSD, figuring out what these pilots were going to look like that we were going to start to expand this work.

Since that time, we've connected with and started contracting with three specific community organizations.

We have two more.

and conversation that we hope to have by the end of this year.

There's a lot that goes into finding community organizations.

And Maria and myself are extremely passionate about this work.

We love doing this.

So does Naomi.

So this is really fun for us.

But it's also a lot of work to find these organizations, do deep dives into how they operate, who they can serve, how they outreach, what they offer, all of that, building trust with these organizations, with our office and themselves, and then also introducing them to HSD and assisting through the contracting process as much as needed.

As we move forward, we're really excited about continuing to find more organizations, continuing to expand this work.

So we look forward to what's to come.

And I'd like to introduce Per now to talk.

He's the data analytics manager to talk about the data.

Thank you, Amy.

So, as was said, data is very important.

Pre-filed diversion is very important to this administration and data being an important part of understanding that and looking to make sure it's always getting better and improving.

We've put a lot of effort into tracking data, setting up performance metrics, and things like that.

You can see in the chart on the left that every quarter, pretty much, like, there's been a trend up of successful pre-filed aversion.

And this doesn't even include the recent expansion that Amy just spoke about.

So it's gone up significantly in the last month and change.

And with that, we've looked at the recidivism.

found ways to compare pre-file diversion to traditional mainstream things, and you can see it's a pretty stark difference.

Really, like, pre-file diversion can make a really important difference in people's lives, both on the victim and the defendant-suspect side.

Not shown here, but important is that we also have a much better ability to collect interesting demographic data.

For instance, not just the traditional criminal justice statistics like race, age, gender, things like that, but we can collect housing status, employment, education, all sorts of really interesting things that over time can give us good insights into, you know, other benefits of these programs and who they're reaching.

And I think that's the kind of thing that can be really helpful for HSD.

So with that, I'd like to turn it over to Annie.

Great.

Thank you so much, Per, Amy, and Natalie.

We also very much appreciate the partnership that we've been working on and advancing through this project.

I'd also like to introduce a couple key people within HSD's Safe and Thriving Communities Division.

David Hawthorne and Mari Sugiyama are in the back, and they have done quite a bit of work working directly with Amy and her team on developing the contracts.

So I'm going to give a little bit of background about how we got here with the council budget action overview as well as some of the contract development process steps that we've been taking at HSD.

So this first slide provides a brief overview specific to the CBA, Expanding Pre-Filing Diversion.

It was passed as part of the 2022 budget and is ongoing.

It adds $750,000 of general fund to the Human Services Department's contract in order to contract with community-based organizations partnering with the city attorney's office on pre-filing diversion.

And this is specifically for expanding to individuals 25 and older.

This budget action was informed by the council funded racial equity toolkit conducted by the city attorney's office in 2020 to assess the concept.

Next slide, please.

So, as alluded to in the first quarter of 2023, first quarter of 2023, CAO revisited and facilitated the conversations with potential agencies and assessed their respective program models, budgets, and overall project implementation feasibility.

They made introductions to HSD and prospective providers.

In quarter two, during contract negotiations, HSD partnered with CAO to clarify program-specific details on the referral process and program parameters for each of the agency's contracts.

An ongoing CAO is a point of contact for questions surrounding referral and program model logistics, and HSD will lead on contract-specific requirements.

This next slide summarizes the contracting plan thus far and the agencies that have executed or are very close to executing contracts.

So, HSD, in partnership with the City's Attorney's Office, continues to have contracting conversations with additional agencies, as mentioned earlier.

And then again, just to point out, not on this slide are the two organizations, Choose 180 and Gay City Health that are already under contract and have been for some time providing pre-filed diversion services to the under 24 population.

So specifically, one of the new programs in the pilot is Unified Outreach.

This is a program that essentially is a one-time, six-hour session that can serve up to 20 individuals at a time.

This program uses expert consultants in fields of early childhood trauma, domestic violence, the criminal system, and addiction recovery, and more.

Participants are surveyed before and after the sessions around what they've learned and how the information can help them move on.

The second pilot program is through the Urban League.

This is a longer program.

It's a four-week program model.

Participants undergo screening and assessment and attend weekly sessions that focus on life skills, trauma-informed care, financial literacy, digital literacy, and job readiness.

Participants are also connected to social services for basic needs and are eligible to receive up to $500 towards support services and $200 in stipends for each week they attend.

Uplift Northwest is sort of a jobs connection program.

There's a pretty quick turnaround between the one-week interview to hire process in this model.

The client participation can span several months once hired.

Individuals referred will complete a job application and do an interview.

And then upon successful completion, applicants will be scheduled for additional screening paperwork and orientation.

And once hired, all individuals are eligible to participate in temporary staffing, job training, certifications, and supportive services at Uplift Northwest.

The final program model that we'll talk about today is the Public Health Seattle King County Jail Health Services Therapeutic Alternative Diversion Program.

It's a mouthful.

This is a program that runs For about two to four months, the care coordinators use a multidisciplinary intake process to determine appropriate needs and refer clients to community-based providers.

There's care coordination and coordinators that provide short-term case management and resources as a bridge until connection with community-based providers are secured and solidified.

The diversion team will survey participants upon program completion, and surveys will be attempted for participants who did not complete the program just to get the feedback around what was successful or not.

So as part of all of HSD's contracts, we do include performance metrics and across the different programs, pilot programs, agencies will be reporting monthly on the number of referrals they get from the city attorney's office, the number of unduplicated participants who enroll, the number of participants who graduate, and the number of participants who report at least one need that has been met.

And with the last program, the Therapeutic Alternative Diversion Program, we're also tracking the number of visits with care coordinators.

So that is a quick overview of the current contracts in play, and now we'll open it up to questions.

Thank you so much.

So just to understand the the pre-filed diversion model, because we have multiple contracting agencies that offer different types of programs, is it correct to assume that there's an analysis of an individual's needs and then that informs the city attorney's referral to a particular program?

Is that more or less how it works?

Yes, that's true.

And there's also certain age requirements depending on the organization.

But yes, we are trying to assess the needs as much as we can.

And then on page 9, it shows that for the expansion of the program to folks above 25 and above, we're looking at serving 325 individuals.

My recollection of the under 25 cohort that the program has some limitations on the underlying crimes that might make somebody eligible or not eligible for pre-file diversion.

Is that the case for the adult program as well?

And if so, can you just give us a big picture where that division lies?

Yes, that's correct.

We have put together some criteria for prefiling diversion.

And we did that looking at, first of all, first engaging with the providers to say what are their limitations, right?

What are they comfortable with?

What could we push them to consider?

And then in addition, we looked at a lot of our other just current diversionary programs like LEAD.

And we also looked at some of our therapeutic court alternatives.

And we tried to do actually make it more accessible than what our therapeutic courts were doing.

And so we do have some, obviously some disqualifiers and they include obviously class A felonies, some time limits on certain violent offenses.

But ultimately we did try and push to make this criteria a little bit more accessible for other, for individuals coming in to our, beyond our young adult age group.

group.

Appreciate that.

So just looking ahead to the council deliberations on legislation incorporating state law regarding possession and public use into the municipal code, would any of these programs be acceptable programs for that cohort of people being arrested?

I think that's entirely plausible.

I think it depends.

I'm going to say it depends and we need to use a kind of a common sense approach.

When looking at things like LEAD and even the LINC program and even community court, we really had difficulty with people showing up.

And so a lot of this will be based upon outreach and close in time in terms of referring.

But there are hundreds of individuals who none of the programs that we've talked about for years will be able to necessarily access unless we change some of the practices that we currently have.

We are looking at two other providers in addition to TAD that we hope to be able to refer those individuals that we think, you know, may be.

But this is not going to be a program that's going to be able to encapsulate all of the individuals that really need services for substance use, and we have difficulty getting people to show up in court.

And even our providers will say that, you know, their outreach attempts are valiant and they have some success, but there will be some challenges in trying to take an entire population of people that we've really struggled to access and put them into pre-filing diversion.

But we are looking at other providers that can provide that, and we're willing to work with anyone, and I'll put that out there, we're willing to work with anyone who feels like they can fill the gaps that are currently within that system.

And for TAD, we're only looking at capacity for 50 individuals.

So, and that's, of all of the contracting organizations, TAD is the one that I think is probably most aligned with that population, and that's a pretty,

small number for for capacity so it is and we asked if they could take more and I think you're gonna find that with many of the providers there there's there's a limit in terms of the capacity and so I just I want to make sure that we have realistic expectations and what the pre-filing diversion unit can do for any sort of anticipated ordinance or legislation.

Thank you.

Councilmember Nelson.

Thank you for that note, because when you talk about it's limited right now, I am really interested in learning more about how it's all going.

And you put down on the slide 14 the performance metrics and just understanding how these models are working would be really important for me.

And I appreciate that there are some new organizations that are being contracted with.

And I put forward a budget proposal that was not successful for a contract with Unified Outreach.

And in fact, you went ahead and did that.

And they provide for, they provide services based on, you know, art and making a living off of art for youth for gun violence prevention.

And so that is not captured in this contract, but lots of other things that they can do, and I'm sure the other providers can.

So I'll be following up offline just to find out what you've learned so far about how it's going and thoughts about the future.

Thank you very much.

I appreciate it.

Thank you.

So, appreciate your presentation.

I appreciate you staying late.

We are, as we always do in this committee, running very, very long behind schedule.

Follow up with additional questions.

I have just a few brief questions.

I didn't see your hand up here.

I'm not on the Zoom.

I was doing it the old-fashioned way.

Go for it.

Anyway, yes, thank you so much for this breakdown and this presentation.

I wanted to ask a little bit about those capacity questions that we just referred to with Tad.

Are those related to the scalability or even if we had more money that we could contract with them, they probably wouldn't be able to meet the scale of more than 50 graduates a year.

But if the city had a bigger appropriation, would they be able to scale commensurate with these numbers to add more capacity?

What's our take on that?

I think it had to do with staffing, but I'm going to defer to Amy.

But like many providers, you know, struggling with staffing, but that was the report out to me.

I was able to work with TAD, you know, at King County.

And so we saw the benefits of that program and a lot of the case managers and people that worked in TAD were formerly with REACH or Evergreen Treatment.

But I'll defer to Amy in terms of, I know we asked for what was their, the ability to have capacity for more than 50, but do you want to talk?

That's exactly right.

It's a staffing thing, so I don't want to speak for Tad.

If there was more ability to hire more staff, if they could take more, I'm assuming they could.

But I haven't had that conversation with them.

The other provider that we're in conversations with is also a provider that would do substance abuse mental health.

So that would add more numbers to this.

But it's still not hundreds.

It's a smaller portion.

And just so I understand the chart correctly, with the asterisk, does that mean, am I to read that to mean that the entire $750,000 is committed to here, but one of the providers is on a biannual basis and that's accounted for in the number, or is there still some additional money that is being bid?

I just want to, the asterisk is throwing me off a little bit.

So I don't know the exact answer to this question, but I believe that, looking back at the team here, that this is money that's been committed in the contracts and that the total funds annually are $585 out of that $750 for programmatic.

So it's a bit confusing.

We can provide more detail at a later date around how much is still available for the contracts for this remaining year.

But some of that delta in the money is based on negotiations with some of these other providers that Amy just alluded to?

Yes.

Okay.

Thank you.

Much appreciated.

So again, I'm sure we'll have some follow-up questions to take offline.

Appreciate you being here.

We do have one more item on the agenda, and people have been waiting very patiently.

So we're going to move on, but again, much appreciated.

Thank you for your work.

Mr. Clerk, can you read the final item in today's agenda?

Agenda item four, transformation is possible.

Recommendations from the Seattle Community Responses to Domestic Violence Work Group.

Thank you so much, Mr. Clerk.

So just quick background as folks are joining us at the table.

This is another, the fourth of four updates on council work.

This one in particular resulted from a council request regarding individuals impacted by the criminal legal system who these individuals as part of a task force met throughout 2021. They were convened by the Office of Civil Rights to develop recommendations for policy changes to the criminal legal system to reduce harm and prevent people from ending up in the system to begin with.

These task force members created a report entitled Centering Impacted Voices, Community Task Force on the Criminal Legal System.

They presented the recommendations at this committee back in September of 2021. One of the recommendations was to create another workgroup of community experts and stakeholders to build alternatives to incarceration that address misdemeanor domestic violence.

for the 2022 budget.

I sponsored a budget amendment for the Office of Civil Rights to support this workgroup.

And with that, I'll pass it off to our presenters.

We can start with a quick round of introductions and then kick it off.

Thank you so much, Councilmember Herbold.

My name is Shannon Perez-Darby, and I'm with Accountable Communities Consortium.

And we will do a quick introduction of the folks here.

Start with our presentation.

Would you like to introduce yourself?

Hi, everyone.

My name is Rahma Rashid.

I'm the founder and executive director of Muslimas Against Abuse Center, and happy to be here.

Thank you.

Hello, everyone.

Nice to be here.

My name is Amaranthea Torres.

I use she, her pronouns, and I'm here as the co-executive director of the Coalition Ending Gender-Based Violence.

Thanks.

Hi, council members.

My name is Erika Pablo.

I'm serving as interim policy director with the Seattle Office for Civil Rights.

Thank you.

Apologies, we just were having a quick tech moment.

Also joining us remotely is Sid Jordan, who is the co-author of the Transformation is Possible report.

All right.

Let's see.

It might be...

I seem to be locked out of this computer, even though it is nicely showing our presentation.

Thank you, Noel, for your assistance.

You're being asked for help on all levels here.

Sorry.

If Lejah T is watching this, could you come down?

Thank you.

All right.

All right.

Thank you so much for your patience.

So who are we?

The Community Responses to Domestic Violence Task Force is 15 total members.

We are survivors, advocates, local leaders and representatives of community-based and culturally specific organizations.

This work group included people with experiences working directly with people who have caused harm to engage in patterns of abuse.

Our primary question driving this workgroup, so this workgroup met for over a year, developed recommendations, and our question is, what community-based supports are available in the Seattle metro area for people who have been abusive?

So some of the things that we learned is that policymakers have generally favored funding community-based supports for survivors and criminal penalties for people who have been abusive.

For a person who is being abusive, there are very few non-criminalizing supports available to stop the abusive behavior and be accountable for the harm they have caused.

And we learned that the city of Seattle does not currently fund non-criminal community responses to domestic violence that focus on reaching people who are being abusive in a romantic, intimate, or spousal relationship.

And one of the core challenges that we discovered as a community-based work group in addressing this with, I believe we have over 200 years of experience working in the domestic violence field represented on the work group, was the need for framing domestic violence as a pattern of power and control.

One of the things that we realized is as we talked about domestic violence, many people had many different definitions and were using a lot of different frameworks to understand the issue.

And so we were utilizing a very specific community-based understanding of domestic violence.

So I am going to take the opportunity to just share that, and then I will pass it along to our work group members to share about their work.

So what we understand is that we know someone who is using a pattern of power and control tries to turn a subject into an object.

So that is the core harm of domestic violence.

We understand that part of the task of being a person is that you get to make choices about your life, about your values, about what's important to you, and then you get to act every day to try to live out your vision of that.

And at its core, domestic violence interrupts survivors' ability to do that task.

That is partly why we care deeply about domestic violence, because it interrupts survivors' ability to be a person.

And so the core harm of domestic violence is that objectification, is that survivors lose the ability to make choices over their own lives.

And that we know that physical violence is a tool of objectification.

So we care deeply about physical violence, but it is not the only dynamic that is present in an abusive relationship.

So if we understand objectification as the core harm of domestic violence, we know that we counterbalance that by supporting people who are experiencing domestic violence in agency and self-determination, that we restore their ability to make choices over their own lives.

And we know that in these responses, everybody needs support.

And the kinds of support that folks need is distinct.

So for people who are experiencing a pattern of power and control and exploitation, we use the word survivor to refer to folks having that experience.

They need support in self-determination and safety.

We care deeply about the question of safety, and it needs to be in deep conversation with people being able to make choices about what is right for them in their own lives.

We also know that it is essential to ending domestic violence to have meaningful supports for people who are abusive.

And so for people who are establishing a pattern of power and control and exploitation over another, we often call those folks people who are abusive, they need support and accountability.

So that includes stopping the harmful behavior and meaningfully attending to the harm that they have caused.

And much of our domestic violence response has really focused on community-based responses for survivors and criminalizing responses for people who are abusive.

So we know in this community-based model, a person experiencing a pattern of power and control as a survivor, a person who's abusive, is a person who's establishing that.

So in a community-based model, people who abuse their partners establish a pattern of power and control that happens 24-7.

So moments of violence, moments of escalation are an important part of the pattern, but to understand and create meaningful and viable responses to domestic violence, we have to understand the full picture of a situation.

So many survivors will tell you about the complex experience of being in a relationship with someone they love who is also harming them.

That is a deeply confusing experience to make sense of the tension and dichotomy between that.

And understanding the full picture of that situation is how we both support survivors and make meaningful plans to prevent harm and to support people who are being abusive and being accountable.

So we also know that in this community model, people who are abusing their partners use a number of tactics, some of which are illegal, most of which are legal.

So it is illegal to assault someone.

It is perfectly legal to say, your sister's really in our business a lot.

I wish you wouldn't hang out with her so much.

that is an effective tool in isolating someone, in perpetuating abuse, but that is not a question for the criminal legal system.

And so we know that many things that happen in an abusive relationship are outside the scope of a criminal legal response.

So we know, meanwhile, that in a criminal legal system, a victim is a person against whom a crime has been committed, and a perpetrator is a person who has been accused or convicted of a crime.

So meanwhile, in the criminal legal system, it is designed to address specific incidences and determine if something illegal happened.

That is one of the primary tasks of the criminal legal system.

And we know that it's just looking at moments of time.

The criminal legal system is very limited in its ability to look at the full picture of behaviors that go into creating a pattern of power and control.

So I share that framing because the work group really believed deeply that understanding this community-based model of a pattern of power and control was essential to understanding why this work was so important, and really that we need a broad response to domestic violence.

It's going to need many different tools and tactics.

And one of the gaps that currently exists is support for people who are abusive, who have not been criminalized.

And we know there are many people who have been abusive who never touched the criminal legal system in relationship to the, to the abuse that they have done.

And we do not have a solution for that.

We don't have support available for people who are abusive who have not been criminalized.

So our recommendations are to establish durable public funding streams for community responses that reach people being abusive and are independent from the criminal legal system.

to invest first in strategies developed by marginalized survivors of domestic violence and practiced in Black and Indigenous communities and other communities of color.

That includes lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer communities, immigrant and refugee communities, and other communities who have been systematically harmed by the criminal legal system.

Our recommendations include starting with a pilot phase, including a community-directed funding process with sufficient funding for community organizations to plan, design, implement, and evaluate programs over a three-year period.

The work group highly recommends protecting community ownership of programs, which includes independent leadership and decision-making, and reporting requirements that reflect community-driven evaluation criteria and participant confidentiality, and to demonstrate public leadership and transparency in the adoption of community responses to domestic violence.

And so I am going to pause there, and I will turn it over to Rahma first to talk a little bit about your work.

Thank you so much.

Again, like I said, my name is Rahma Rashid.

I'm the founder and executive director of Muslims Against Abuse Center and happy to be here.

Muslims Against Abuse Center is also known as MAC, which is a dedicated nonprofit organization that's committed to empowering and educating women.

and young girls of color to help them overcome past traumas and be able to live successful lives.

Despite facing many challenges due to limited funding, we remain steadfast in our pursuit to serving and supporting our community.

We aim to create positive change and healing within an underserved population.

At MAC, our team reflect the very same communities we serve, which is primarily the East African community.

We understand the cultural barriers and unique challenges faced by young girls and women of color.

As a Black Muslim woman myself, I understand the many needs within our community, which possess an intimate understanding of the needs of our community.

Although our journey as an organization began in 2020, we have over 10 years of experience helping and creating support groups and addressing concerns and struggling facing the countless women and young girls within our community.

Some of the programs that we do currently serve is our Max Safe Space, which is a one-on-one advocacy program as well as a support group in which we provide confidential and nurturing environment.

where our clients can freely share their experiences with domestic violence and sexual assault, where they will also receive tools and resources to better help them heal and grow.

We also provide a teen awareness program, which is a monthly youth center program to help focus on prevention and mental health.

We host culturally responsive workshops to educate our young people around topics such as domestic violence prevention, mental health, substance abuse, just to name a few, because we understand that we understand that prevention is key within our community and starting off at a young age.

We also provide our Honor Rolls program, which is a biweekly brunch for women and young girls to discuss many different topics that affect us within our communities, such as health and well-being.

Some of the workshops are birth equity, generational trauma, parenting tips, domestic violence prevention, postpartum repression, and black maternity health, just to name a few.

while providing them a relaxing, culturally appropriate space to help them learn and grow.

At MAC, we are committed to breaking barriers and creating lasting changes for women and young girls within our community.

By providing them essential support, education, and resources, we empower them to overcome their past and thrive in the future.

Together, we are fostering a stronger, safer, and more resilient community for all because we understand that we want to be the change that we desperately needed growing up.

Thank you.

Thanks so much.

It's really nice to be here again.

Amaranthia Torres here with the Coalition Ending Gender-Based Violence.

I'm the co-executive director there.

Our coalition supports over 35 community-based organizations working towards an end to gender-based violence, such as sexual assault, rape, and domestic violence.

We were so pleased to be able to participate in this work group alongside so many community leaders.

And we wanted to just share a couple of highlights for us as a coalition from the report.

First, increasing the choices survivors have about how to respond to abuse supports their self-determination and safety.

As Shannon already laid out, domestic violence is so much about controlling and limiting another person's choices, and healing from abuse is very often a process of reclaiming that choice and agency over one's own life.

Some survivors want to see justice through the criminal legal system.

And some survivors just want the abuse to stop, but they don't want their partner incarcerated or deported or harmed by the criminal legal system.

And so there are lots of valid reasons for all these profoundly hard choices that survivors are faced with.

And we know that survivors seek safety in a variety of ways.

not just through the criminal legal system.

And I think so much of what this report does is ask us to grapple with holding multiple truths at the same time.

And that's one of those, that safety can look a lot of different ways and that survivors are, we believe that survivors are really the experts of their own situation around what is safe and what does that mean for them.

And a big part of advocates job is to support those choices, whatever that might look like.

But we know that we've learned to that one size fits all approaches are really not effective, given the complexity of domestic violence and the unique needs of survivors.

So for us as a coalition, the more choices that exist the increased options for survivors before them when they're faced with having to respond to domestic violence in their own lives, that increases their safety, that increases their own ability to reclaim and heal from abuse by having more choices available to them.

And alternatives to the criminal legal system is just one more option that we can explore with them.

And lastly, I would say a big part of the report, something we wanted to highlight, is that a robust and stable network of survivor-centered organizations is an indispensable part of our region's response to domestic violence.

This work group, as I said, and the report itself, it really asks us to grapple with a lot of profound and complex questions.

Things like, can someone who has been abusive change their behavior?

What does justice and accountability really look like?

How do we reconcile the well-documented and ongoing disparities against folks of color, particularly black folks within the criminal legal system, both against survivors and against folks causing harm, all in the name of trying to support survivor safety?

These are not questions with easy answers.

We certainly don't presume to have those answers here today, but I can tell you that community advocates at gender-based violence programs grapple with these questions every day in the support that they offer to survivors.

Because survivors grapple with these questions in their lives and as they think about how do I wanna respond to what's happening in my life and how my partner's treating me and what are the choices before me in my community, in society, in the criminal legal system, or in other systems that they may be navigating.

And so I think it's important to just note that advocates every day in our region, in our city, explore all of these options and choices with survivors and help them make the choice that's right for them and their families.

Advocates help survivors navigate the complex criminal legal system, which is not easy to do.

It's very confusing.

It can be very complicated to access.

But when a survivor chooses that route, which many survivors do, advocates are there to help support them through that system.

And just as advocates support survivors in that option, advocates support survivors in exploring alternatives to the criminal legal system and have been doing that for a very long time.

And I think that's something that I like that the report really highlights and that came up so much in the work group is how much gender-based violence programs and folks with expertise in this work have been doing this already and are good resources to go to for how do we create these alternatives if we want something outside of the criminal legal system.

And that advocates are really doing a lot of the work to help survivors explore those options in a nonjudgmental way and really supporting them with their true choice about how they want to proceed.

And so the last thing I'll say about that is just that to really highlight that culture specific and buy in for programs have so much expertise in this area and to really go to those folks when we have these questions about what do alternatives look like?

How do we create that?

And then just to highlight that adequate and robust funding for this network of gender-based violence programs is essential to upholding survivors' choices wherever they land on the spectrum of services and wherever they land on the spectrum of how they wanna respond to domestic violence that they're experiencing.

I think those were my main thoughts, but really look forward to any next steps in implementing these recommendations and really appreciate the time to speak with you all today.

Thank you and now we are available or happy to answer any questions you might have.

Just a quick observation.

We periodically will have the city attorney come and brief us on their quarterly reports on their work.

And their most recent report that I have, which is end of quarter one for 2023, shows consistent with previous reports that domestic violence referrals historically have higher decline rates than anything else that the city attorney's office does.

The prosecutors are, in making these decisions, weigh the impact to the victim, the victim's desired outcome, the nature of past referrals in addition to the evidence.

But a very large number of these declines are related to the victim's wishes.

Most recently, we are looking at 65% decline rate.

So regardless of how uncomfortable we might be with the idea of not prosecuting these crimes, the reality is they're not being prosecuted.

Many of them are not being prosecuted.

So for those examples, there aren't consequences.

There is no accountability.

And so I think this data really, in addition to the experiences that you've uplifted from the work that you do, really point to the necessity to find other ways.

I think when you briefed me on this report, I admitted I really struggled with the idea of a perpetrator of violence being held accountable and without having a threat of prosecution or a program like the domestic violence intervention program through the courts, some sort of a stick in addition to the carrot.

And you shared with me that this is actually not a new idea, that there was previously a program very much like this.

that operated in Seattle for a number of years.

The fact that it doesn't operate here anymore was not a factor related to, was not a result of factors related to ineffectiveness.

It was more, I think, funding decisions.

But if you could just very light touch on this previous program that operated in this community, very much aligned with this model.

Yeah, so the program you're referring to is a batterers intervention program that existed for decades at Wellspring Services, that we did interview folks who had run that program as part of our work group activities to learn more about the work they had done.

Many of us have experiences as domestic violence advocates referring people to that program and being in very close collaboration.

And yes, it is our understanding of that program and did not because there was a lack of need or desire, but a primary funder funding priorities changed that resulted in that program no longer existing but that was a well.

loved program that I know for me as a domestic violence advocate, being able to have a collaborative community-based program that I felt a lot of trust in their ability to support people who are abusive to refer folks to was an essential part of our response network.

And we really feel the gap of not having that kind of support.

And people who are abusive did participate.

Yeah, and voluntarily.

So that program did include both.

They receive referrals, court-based referrals, but you could also self-select into that program.

And they did work with folks on both ways, both folks who were not criminalized as well as people who were referred by courts.

Thank you.

When I met with you earlier to learn about your recommendations, I did share with you my concerns about the city's looming budget challenges and understand that your recommendations for a pilot are scalable.

Look forward to additional conversations with you about that.

And just looking for my colleagues, whether or not there are additional questions, I do appreciate that folks have stayed late, don't want to lose quorum.

Council Member Nelson?

In the interest of time, I will not ask and say many of the things that I want to say, but mostly it's thank you very much for this presentation.

I think that my mind is also opening to different ways of responding to this really pervasive problem.

And I appreciate your framing of it too.

Thank you.

All right.

Thank you.

Well, thank you, Council Member Herbold and the committee.

The work group is very grateful for the opportunity to share back our work with you.

And we're happy to stay in conversation about this work and its continuation.

All right.

Thank you so much.

And for the viewing public and anybody else, the report is linked to the agenda.

I hope everybody reads it.

All right.

Thank you.

The next regularly scheduled Public Safety and Human Services Committee meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, August 8th, 2023. If council committee members anticipate being absent for the meeting, we do ask that you let our office know.

If there are no additional comments from my colleagues, seeing none, the time is 12.15 PM and we are adjourned.

Thank you, everyone.