Clallam and Jefferson counties have been selected for a program dubbed “swift and certain” that’s intended to dispense justice to former felons by giving them less jail time when they falter, the state Department of Corrections announced last week.
The program will go into effect if a bill sponsored by Sen. Jim Hargrove, a Democrat from Hoquiam who represents the 24th District, passes the state Legislature and is signed into law — something that Hargrove is confident will occur.
The new program is based on the premise that shorter sentences imposed immediately on former felons who violate conditions of their release are more effective in combating recidivism than longer but delayed sentences — and will save taxpayers’ money.
An estimated 150 former felons are under community supervision in Clallam and Jefferson counties, Jeri Boe, the state Department of Corrections’ community corrections supervisor for the North Olympic Peninsula, said last week.
The two counties, along with Pasco and Vancouver, were selected in part because of available jail space, Karen Adams, the agency’s northwest region field administrator, said last week.
“This is a cultural shift for many community corrections officers in the field,” she said last week.
Research from the Department of Corrections and the Washington State Institute for Public Policy, a nonpartisan legislative research group, supports the notion that shorter sentences imposed immediately on community supervision scofflaws are more effective than longer sentences, Corrections spokesman Chad Lewis said last week.
“This is the most fundamental change in community corrections we’ve had in many years,” Lewis said.
The program is part of pending Senate Bill 6204, sponsored by Hargrove, who represents Clallam and Jefferson counties and part of Grays Harbor County.
Under the plan,ex-felons on community supervision who violate the conditions of their release would immediately serve up to three days for violating those conditions, such as failing to have a urinalysis or to meet with a community supervision officer.
Hargrove said Friday the bill, which has passed the Senate with support from Republicans, is virtually assured of passage in the House this week.
“The Department of Justice is trying to replicate this in other states,” Hargrove said.
Clallam County Sheriff Bill Benedict said last week he “thoroughly” supports the program.
“The empirical data on it supports the outcome,” Benedict said, adding he expects a spike in arrests after the program starts that the county jail can handle.
Released felons will be less likely to violate conditions “once we got the message through” that they would immediately face jail if they don’t follow those conditions, he added.
Jefferson County Sheriff Tony Hernandez said he is taking a “wait-and-see approach,” but he added Friday that if a promised increase in drug and alcohol treatment for the former offenders is included, “I will be happy with the bill.”
The measure would save the state $21 million in jailing costs, $6.3 million of which would be plowed back into increased drug and alcohol treatment that would be given to virtually all of the state’s 22,000 community supervision clients instead of only 9,000, Hargrove said Friday.
“Essentially every one of them will be on treatment,” Hargrove said.
“Research shows when you have additional treatment and do ‘swift and certain,’ it reduces recidivism.”
More serious offenders who violate those conditions would receive up to 30 days in jail.
The shorter confinement applied immediately “does more to impact behavior than uncertain, longer period of time,” Lewis said.
When inmates serve longer sentences, they lose their employment and come out of jail homeless and destabilized, he said.
Community supervision violators are prone to falling back into an incarceration routine they are familiar with and adapt easily to, Lewis said.
“Offenders know how to do time,” he said.
“When you say you are going to put them in jail for two or three days automatically, no questions asked, it does get at their behavior immediately.”
One casualty of the bill would be hearings officers in the state of Washington — 15 would lose their jobs.
The legislation is modeled after a program in Hawaii, information on which is available at www.hopeprobation.org.
Angela Hawken, associate professor of economics and policy analysis at Pepperdine University, who has studied the program in Hawaii, told The Associated Press that ex-convicts can be conditioned to change their behavior when facing a heightened threat of jail time.
Hargrove said some House Republicans have opposed the bill, wanting to exclude certain types of crimes.
Republicans have sought to exclude serious crimes from the bill’s provisions.
“That does not really seem to make sense,” Hargrove said.
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Senior Staff Writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-417-3536 or at paul.gottlieb@peninsuladailynews.com.
