Crime panel seeks tax boost for treatment programs

It's stark language for a government document — especially one written, in part, by seasoned criminal-justice specialists.

For 38 pages, they lay out their case, musing about "the avoidance of human misery" and sharing worries about people who've "fallen into the crevice of inaccessible care."

The Snohomish County Council last summer assembled a "blue-ribbon" commission to take a broad look at the county's soaring criminal-justice costs, which this year will devour 71.2 percent — $150 million — of the county's operating budget.

After six months of work collecting a dizzying array of advice and data from experts and the general public, the commissioners recently delivered their report.

The bottom line: The national get-tough-on-crime trend has siphoned money from crucial programs that could cut to the root of the problem.

Instead of just hiring more cops and building more jail cells, society must fund prevention programs targeted at mental illness among children and adults, drug addiction, school-dropout rates and family cycles of criminal activity.

"This might be regarded as fairly naive," admitted commission chairman Seth Dawson, the county's former elected prosecutor, as he urged the council to be an innovative, national leader on crime prevention.

"Left to its own devices, victimization goes up, the cost goes up, and five, 10 years from now there's even less money available to turn this around," Dawson said. "If not now, then when will we undertake this effort?"

The council immediately acted upon one key commission recommendation regarding a small sales-tax increase that would raise up to $11.25 million per year for programs to treat the mentally ill and drug abusers. The state Legislature in 2005 authorized counties to impose the one-tenth of 1 percent tax, which equates to 10 cents on a $100 purchase.

Anne Deacon, a division manager in the county's Human Services department, has promised the council she would return by May 1 with a package of specific programs that could be funded with the proposed tax.

King, Island and Skagit counties already have enacted the tax; Dawson stressed that the Legislature is unlikely to provided additional treatment-program funding for Snohomish County unless it follows suit.

The council will hold a public hearing before making a final decision on the tax.

Deacon, a former state prison manager, firmly endorsed two of the commission's specific proposals for spending the new tax dollars, including mental-health and drug-treatment programs for the county's uninsured and underinsured residents.

Nearly 28 percent of county residents between 18 and 29 lack health insurance, she said, and that is an age group in which chemical addictions and mental-health problems tend to surface.

She also supported creating a "triage center" in Everett for mentally ill people arrested throughout the county. Officers now spend hours at local hospitals when they arrest people with mental-health issues.

That might have saved the career of commission member Kit Wennersten, a former Marysville patrol cop forced to take early retirement after he damaged his knees in 2006 while struggling to arrest a mentally ill man. Wennersten had dealt with the man off and on all day before concluding he needed to be involuntarily hospitalized.

"I would have been able to drop him off [before the situation escalated]," Wennersten said. "There would be a safe place for him to go, and get him back on track."

Wennersten is enthusiastic about the commission's focus on prevention measures. He spent six years as a DARE officer, doing anti-drug work with Marysville fifth-graders.

"I had several thousands kid I taught," he said. "I could take you down and introduce you to a 22-year-old who would tell you, 'I'm still drug free.'

"And I lost some — the environment they were living in, they didn't stand a chance."

Diane Brooks: 425-745-7802 or dbrooks@seattletimes.com