Jan. 30, 2008 at 12:02am

Tacoma City Council to State: No Felon Placement *Grant* Wanted

Today, the Tacoma City Council has relatively a uneventful meeting night.

However, during the ealier sudy session, the council wrote a letter to oppose  the State of Washington's effort to place an additional felon boarding house in Hilltop through a grant (via the TNT):

The Tacoma City Council wants the state of Washington to rescind a $1.1 million grant awarded to a nonprofit group to house former inmates, citing serious concerns about the group....

Although Walker tried to separate her concerns about Citizens for Responsible Justice from larger issues, other council members linked it to ongoing concerns that Tacoma and Pierce County serve as the state’s dumping ground for ex-cons. A draft letter that Walker brought to the meeting asked only that the state rescind its grant to Citizens for Responsible Justice and give the funds to a “more capable organization.” The council changed that to say it’s the city’s preference that the contract go to an organization outside of Pierce County.

Commentary:

The public outrage and media coverage over Tacoma and Pierce County's perpetual status as a felon dumping ground has reached a crescendo.

Although the state "fair share" legislation last year was supposed to lower the amount of felons being placed in Pierce County, Pierce County Prosecutor Gerry Horne and others believe that the grant program is just another way to locate a disproportionate amount of felons here.  I find Horne's analysis credible.

According to Horne, here is why this is such a troublesome issue (from the prosecutors website):

Department of Corrections programs placed in Pierce County receive a large percentage of offenders from other counties. Data obtained from DOC via the Public Records Act show that 67% of men and women who went through work release and prerelease facilities in Pierce County received their original felony conviction in another county...

Communities with higher populations of released offenders have higher crime rates. A 2002 Department of Justice report found that 67 % of state offenders are rearrested for a new crime within three years.

Thus, two thirds of the felons released in Tacoma and Pierce County can be expected to be caught committing another crime in the next three years.  Also, two thirds of felons who are placed in Pierce County committed crimes in other counties.

With such a high correlation between the number of released felons and the crime rate, the City of Tacoma will only be able to significantly reduce its crime rate with the reduction of felon placement in the city.  If the city council is looking for an output measure for success, lowering the number of felons being placed in Tacoma would seem to be an objective measure.

Here's Gerry Horne being interviewed on the issue
:
 

For more information see:

Tacoma City Club Study  : Thirty Years of DOC in Pierce County: Is it Worth it?

From Pierce County Prosecutor Web Site: Crime Warp