Seattle police began jailing shoplifters and petty criminals for the first time in four years, after previously allowing vandals and low-level criminals to walk free.
The change went into effect in November and reverses a pandemic-era restriction instituted by the county jail, according to the New York Post. King County slashed its capacity for prisoners due to social distancing restrictions, beginning in 2020. After pandemic restrictions were lifted, the county cited staffing issues for the continued limit on cell availability.
Seattle officials, including City Attorney Ann Davison, said the restrictions allowed many crimes to go entirely unpunished.
At one point, Seattle began negotiating with a different jailhouse in the city of De Moines to hold low-level criminals in. A group of public defenders sent a letter to the city council arguing that the commute to the new jailhouse would be too long, according to the Urbanist.
Police are thrilled with the changes as they’ve pushed for years for more tools to fight a four-year crime wave that has ravaged the city.
“We’ve had people tell us, ‘You can’t arrest me for that.’ Well, that was true but now we can. We’re hoping to get a little bit of accountability back,” Deputy Police Chief Eric Barden told the Seattle Times.
Seattle is an outlier among big cities, seeing a rise in gun crime, while other major cities are seeing small decreases.
In Baltimore, shootings are down 18%, Detroit is down 22%, and New Orleans is down 44% in comparison to the previous year, a Seattle Times review of the data found. Seattle and Washington D.C. stand alone as seeing increases in violent crime.
Shots fired are up 26% in 2024 in Seattle and shootings are up 55%. Most cities across the nation are down to pre-pandemic levels of crime. Seattle and Portland are reportedly the only cities in the nation seeing crime levels rise.
