Shawn Vestal: Spokane County tweaking release program as final stage in MacArthur funding approaches

Last January, Spokane County launched a pilot program that attempted to connect some nonviolent criminal defendants with services addressing problems such as poverty, drug addiction and mental illness.

It was one of several criminal-justice reform proposals that emerged during the nine-year relationship with the MacArthur Foundation, which has granted the county $4.5 million since 2015 to shrink the jail population and reduce racial disparities in the justice system.

The supported-release pilot focused particularly on reducing the number of people in jail only because they can’t afford bail, offering limited numbers of them a release without bond if they engaged with case managers.

But the first version of the program – designed in a rush under the threat of losing the grant funding – was essentially a bust, county officials say. Few defendants were referred, even fewer agreed to participate, and none saw the program through.

Now, the county is going to ask the MacArthur Foundation to approve a refashioned version of the program that brings it back inside the county’s pretrial services department, adds staff and provides more monitoring and follow-up.

The goal is to overcome obstacles in people’s lives that might limit their ability to return to court as ordered, and to prevent escalating charges and warrants from the failure to show up.

“I feel there’s a better way to do it,” Mike Sparber, the county’s senior director of law and justice, said in an interview last week.

Sparber presented data about the supported release to county commissioners last week, along with the county’s ride-share program providing free rides to court dates and court-ordered appointments. He also described his plan to apply for the MacArthur Foundation’s Capstone grant – a two-year award aimed at extending successful initiatives and making them sustainable.

The county plans to ask for $540,000 to fund the revised supported-release, ride-share and other programs; to hire three staffers in pretrial services to focus on preventing failure-to-appear warrants; and to gather more data and create a dashboard to track program. It also asks MacArthur to allow the unspent portion – about half – of the previous supported-release funding to go toward the new approach.

Whatever happens with that application, it will mark the final chapter in the relationship between Spokane County and the MacArthur Foundation – which has weathered changes in leadership and clashes over philosophy. During that time, there has often been tension between the goals of the foundation – reducing incarceration, bail reform and addressing racial disparities – and those of some officials who viewed the work as soft on crime.

With the failure of Measure 1 in last November’s election, questions about the jail capacity, reducing recidivism, and finding effective alternatives to incarceration have gained urgency. Sparber said he’s placing a high priority on reaching out to stakeholders and finding ways to be more effective.

The incentive is significant. The typical cost of one night in jail is about $180 but the cost to book and rebook people is much higher. Sparber presented data to the commissioners about the cost of arresting and booking someone in jail – in detention services alone, that first night costs more than $949, including booking costs, an intake nurse visit and officers involved at several points in the process.

Add in police, prosecutors and public defenders, court staff and other elements, and that single intake – from arrest to a night in jail – is more than $1,322.

Colin Charbonneau, the director of Spokane County’s public defender’s office, said he’s hopeful that some changes in the program will help it be more successful – and that the goal of the program remains important.

“The value is, you’re going to reduce the jail population, you’re going to reduce recidivism,” and people facing major noncriminal obstacles in their lives can avoid an escalating series of charges, he said.

Conflicting goals

When Spokane won its first MacArthur grant in 2015, there was a widespread interest in criminal justice reform.

Following the Otto Zehm case and the sentencing of former Spokane police Officer Karl Thompson in connection with Zehm’s death, seemingly every public official in town was on board with examining and improving the way justice was delivered, from initiatives to train police officers for mental health crises to efforts to reduce jail crowding.

A key touchstone was the Blueprints for Reform report, produced in 2013, that laid out a menu of critiques and proposed changes for the region’s criminal justice system – a report whose guidance and ideas continue to shape the conversation.

The first MacArthur award, a relatively small $150,000, was one of just 20 handed out nationally by the MacArthur Foundation’s Safety and Justice Challenge. Spokane County went on to receive additional grants in the years that followed; it used the money to gather data on the jail and justice system, to study and develop ways to try and bring the jail population down.

Most people in jail in America haven’t been convicted of any crime. They are the pretrial population, and many are in jail only because they cannot afford bail. Three-quarters are jailed for nonviolent property, traffic, drug or “public order” offenses, the challenge says, and the racial disparities are stark – Black people are jailed at a rate nearly four times that of white people.

Since 2016, the 57 jurisdictions participating in the Safety and Justice Challenge have reduced their jail populations by 22%, according to the foundation. The number of those being held before trial dropped by 13%.

Spokane’s jail population dropped 13.4%, from an average of 816 to 707 by the middle of last year, and its pretrial population dropped by 16%. The jail population has crept upward again in the months since; it was at 848 last week.

There’s been little change in the racial makeup of the jail population; at the front end of the grant period, Black people represented 13% of those jailed in Spokane County, compared to 2% of the general population. Indigenous people represented 8% of the jail population, compared to 2% of the population. Those numbers have remained essentially the same.

As the MacArthur work proceeded, a dividing line emerged between reform advocates and key public officials, like the sheriff and prosecutor, who argued the county was already releasing too many defendants and that the reforms lacked accountability measures, and who questioned the assumption that the racial inequities were a problem.

After years of internal conflict, the county’s former law and justice administrator, Maggie Yates, resigned in 2022, saying she could no longer push forward the work of her office. Sparber, the former jail director, was hired to lead the county’s refashioned Regional Law and Justice Council.

Yates, who went on to make an unsuccessful challenge to Al French for a Spokane County Commission seat and who is now the assistant city administrator for Spokane, first designed a supported-release program before she left that position; Spokane County Prosecutor Larry Haskell opposed the project and it stalled.

After she left, the program languished until the MacArthur Foundation warned the county that it might pull $400,000 in grant funding if it did not proceed. Former Spokane County Sheriff Ozzie Knezovich and others quickly put together a program, and the county launched it in January 2023.

Low participation

The pilot operated in District Court, which handles misdemeanor cases, traffic and parking infractions, and other matters. The county contracted with Pioneer Human Services for $339,000 to provide case-management services for defendants referred by public defenders and approved by a judge.

The program targeted a narrow demographic: defendants who did not have other charges in other courts, who faced problems such as lack of access to housing or transportation, and who were not otherwise qualified to be released on their own recognizance. In lieu of setting a bond, a judge would agree to release the defendant to connect with case managers.

Between April and November, 84 people were referred for the program. About half couldn’t participate because they faced other charges, and some declined services, according to a year-end report prepared by the county for the MacArthur Foundation. Of 24 who moved forward, eight enrolled and went through a comprehensive evaluation – all eight fell out of contact with case managers

“Every participant who was enrolled is no longer active and did not successfully complete the program,” the county wrote in its report.

“The program has no accountability mechanism and because there is no incentive to participate in the program, the eligible pool’s interest in the program remains low. … Services are needed for this population, but the program needs to be redesigned. The program is not well-utilized, participation is non-existent, and potential impact is impossible to measure.”

Charbonneau said the pilot suffered from a few problems. The public defender’s office has had a lot of turnover and staffing challenges, which made it harder to keep up with the referral process. The criteria for the program also eliminated most people charged in District Court; the program could not be applied in cases of DUI, domestic violence or any other violence, and the majority of defendants in that court are released on their own recognizance because of the level of the charges.

He said that bringing the case management element into pretrial services, offering contact with defendants earlier in the process and eliminating the need to travel to an appointment later could improve the results.

“I think there’s value to continue to work on it and hope it will be successful,” he said.

Sparber said the biggest problem was that the people diverted into the program simply didn’t see it through, and there was no consequence if they didn’t.

At the commission meeting last week, Commissioner Josh Kerns noted that Haskell had predicted the program would not work for that reason.

“The prosecutor told us this was going to be the outcome,” Kerns said. “Larry’s crystal ball was spot-on.”

Sparber is proposing that the program be redesigned to move it to a different point in the system – instead of working with defendants who have been charged and called into court, it would be moved to pretrial services, which engages with defendants before a first court appearance. Those services are on the county campus with the court and jail, and staffers there can connect with defendants earlier in the process, he said.

Sparber is proposing adding three staffers in pretrial services, including one Pioneer case manager, as part of the county’s application for a Capstone grant.

He also reported on the MacArthur-funded ride-share program, which offers Uber rides and bus passes to help people to make it to court dates and court-ordered appointments.

The goal is to help prevent low-income defendants from missing court appearances and escalating into failure-to-appear warrants.

Between December 2021 and February 2024, the county spent $268,000 on Uber rides and $5,000 on bus passes. More than 13,600 Uber rides were provided to 995 people; by far the greatest use of the rides was for court-ordered appointments to things like addiction treatment, and not for court appearances, Sparber said.

Still, looking only at District Court data, the rides correlated with a reduction in failure-to-appear warrants. Because there are other factors that might have played a role, officials said they can’t say for certain that the ride program was the reason – but Sparber noted that judges and attorneys, here and in other places that use similar programs, believe it’s having an effect.

And the potential savings are significant. Sparber’s overall figure for the cost of finding, arresting and booking someone into jail for failing to show up for court – more than $1,300 – is a lot higher than the cost of the average Uber ride the county paid for: $37.

Gathering and publishing better data about long-term outcomes in the program would be one of the goals for the county if it receives the Capstone grant, Sparber said.

“We just haven’t done a good job of tracking data,” he said.