成人X站

When she took office last year, promised to focus attention on the 鈥渇requent flyers鈥� 鈥� the repeat offenders who were using Seattle鈥檚 community court to play the judges for suckers. Offenders who would promise to accept voluntary treatment and then not show up.

She called her approach the High Utilizer Initiative, and Monday, on the Jason Rantz Show on KTTH, she said the numbers show it鈥檚 working.

More from Dave Ross: You have to pay your transit fare now; imagine that

“We’ve prevented over 750 police referrals, which if people like it in percentage, means an 11% reduction in the annual average of incoming cases from the Seattle Police to our office,” Davidson said.

So, what changed? Well, she decided that crimes like trespassing, shoplifting, and vandalism 鈥� even though they鈥檙e considered low-level 鈥� need to be prosecuted at some point.

The problem was that as part of the city鈥檚 idealistic show of compassion after the George Floyd murder, some low-level offenders were being released 鈥� repeatedly 鈥� after promising to go to rehab. The same offenders were coming back five times, 10 times, and in one case, 22 times.

That鈥檚 a lot of compassion.

“Voluntary things, outpatient treatment that most of the high utilizers chose to leave. So it speaks to a high need for better in-custody treatment options. That type of an approach was just not working for this population,” Davidson said.

So last year, she sent a request to the Seattle Municipal Court asking that 118 individuals who鈥檝e been referred to the prosecutor’s office 12 or more times in the past five years be excluded from the community court program.

And now, there鈥檚 a new message on the street.

“You cannot go to community court repeatedly with 20, 30, 40, 50 police referrals. That’s not an appropriate use of that alternative, and it’s not an appropriate response for that level of criminal activity,” Davidson said.

But what really surprised me was when she told Rantz that this new approach didn鈥檛 require a huge budget increase 鈥� just a little more cooperation in the court system.

“We do it by actually communicating and getting public safety partners to work together. It didn’t need to be a high-cost task to do, so it really could just be by having people work together,” Davidson said.

And to me, this is the essence of informed idealism.

It鈥檚 important to try new things 鈥� like a community court that focuses on compassion 鈥� but it鈥檚 just as important to recognize when a new idea is doing more harm than good. And to acknowledge that some people don鈥檛 need compassion, they need consequences.

Listen to Seattle鈥檚 Morning News with Dave Ross and Colleen O鈥橞rien weekday mornings from 5 鈥� 9 a.m. on 成人X站 Newsradio, 97.3 FM. Subscribe to the聽podcast here.