House panel hears Inslee plan to fight property crime

OLYMPIA — A bill to combat Washington’s worst-in-the-nation property crime rate by putting offenders on a revived state supervision program drew criticism in a House committee hearing Wednesday afternoon.

The proposal, announced in January by Gov. Jay Inslee and a bipartisan group of lawmakers, aims to bring down the rate of repeat offenses by people convicted of property crimes, such as burglary and car theft, by requiring them to go through a year of supervision and treatment once their time behind bars ends. It would restructure the state’s sentencing rules so property offenders face less time in custody but receive help acclimating to the real world instead.

“We’re going to make sure you toe the line for at least a year when you get out of prison,” said Rep. Brad Klippert, a Republican from Kennewick who is an officer in the Benton County sheriff’s department.

Klippert, who is lead sponsor of the bill, and other backers told the panel the shift to put property-crime offenders on a state supervision program they were largely removed from a decade ago, along with the bill’s victim-notification programs and law enforcement grant money, would effectively fight the recidivism rate that sends property criminals back to prison. Committee chairman Roger Goodman, D-Kirkland, said during the meeting he sees a need for a change.

“It makes sense to me that if we have the highest property crime rate in the country and we don’t supervise property offenders upon release, there’s probably a problem there,” he said.

The change would move many offenders’ incarcerations out of state prisons by shortening their sentences to a year or less, which would mean the time is served in county jails. County prosecutors and law enforcement representatives warned lawmakers that an unintended consequence of this change — even if it succeeds in preventing overcrowding in the state’s filled-to-capacity prison system — could overburden the counties.

Thurston County Prosecuting Attorney Jon Tunheim said even if the bill is passed and the emphasis on rehabilitating property offenders with the year of supervision succeeds in cutting the property crime rate, it will likely have the short-term effect of overcrowding jails. Judges, he said, who are used to giving repeat offenders heavier sentences would keep doing it, even if the new guidelines call for shorter time in custody plus the supervision time.

“It’ll actually take some time for the sentencing culture to shift,” he said.

Dan Satterberg, the King County prosecuting attorney, added that putting more offenders on supervision could prove unexpectedly expensive for Washington, since the state waived its immunity from lawsuits almost 50 years ago. Even with state supervision not currently an option for most people convicted of property crimes, the state paid more than $20 million in 2014 for judgments and settlements related to offenders on supervised release, Satterberg said.

“Our tort liability is going to increase” with an estimated 2,000 property crime offenders coming onto state supervision for yearlong sentences, he said.