Over the years, ChangeWA has occasionally sided with the long-time Times columnist, Danny Westneat, especially when extremists like Kshama Sawant, Lisa Herbold, and Pete Holmes controlled Seattle City Hall. But on his recent column explaining why Seattle crime rates have dropped, Westneat appeared to have forgotten several important occurrences which have had far more impact than the one he believes (social programs) caused crime to drop.

In explaining why crime suddenly rose in 2021, Westneat puts the blame on drugs, gangs, road rage, and homelessness. He concludes his list by mentioning that Seattle City Council’s “defunding the police” caused a mass exodus of hundreds of police officers in an already depleted department. 

Westneat failed to mention that progressives in the Washington State Legislature soon caved into the demands of violent CHAZ/CHOP rioters to pass several anti-police bills and essentially legalized lethal drug possession (by not fixing the Blake decision). These reckless acts were committed as prisons and local jails were placing limits on new suspects being incarcerated due to COVID restrictions. Meanwhile cheap fentanyl was flooding the market, causing overdose deaths to skyrocket.

After Governor Jay Inslee signed the anti-police bills into law in 2021, crime rates predictably skyrocketed. Local officials protested and demanded two changes, 1) repeal the anti-police pursuit laws since criminals knew they could just drive away from police questioning, and 2) pass new drug-possession laws as the state’s drug crisis was not only killing thousands but was also the driving factor for the increase in property and retail crimes.

The Democrat legislative leaders at first ignored these concerns, but finally a special session of the legislature was called in May 2023 to pass a new state drug possession laws, which local governments needed to pass before their police departments could enforce.

A new, more moderate, yet still progressive, Seattle City Council soon passed drug possession laws which went into effect October 20, 2023. The new laws provided a necessary tool for law enforcement. With the threat of serving time in jail, many addicts finally accepted treatment.

As the new drug possession laws began to improve things slightly, Washington citizens began the process to repeal the police pursuit restrictions. More than 400,000 signatures were collected on I-2113 to remove the restrictions.  Crime almost instantly reduced (for instance car theft’s plummeted 32% almost instantly) as criminals knew they could no longer flee from police.

The progressives on the Seattle City Council who passed the disastrous “defund the police” measures either refused to run for subsequent re-election or were thrown out by the voters. The new city council has subsequently passed 15 commonsense public safety measures which sought to help police recruitment and assist law enforcement to combat drug and sex-trafficking crimes.

Also, Seattle’s prosecutors have instituted a high utilizers program that focused attention on 118 repeat criminals who were responsible for 2,500 criminal cases and likely tens of thousands of crimes.

At the federal level, stronger border security and a targeted effort to arrest and deport illegal aliens with criminal records (especially gang members), is also having an impact on crime rates.

Yet despite all these commonsense actions by citizens and a few reasonable corrections by elected officials, the only reason for the crime drop that Westneat can provide is “enormous investments in community spending,” as if social programs in Seattle haven’t been booming for more than 60 years. King County has a webpage that provides more than 5,000 social services available – nearly all of them began before crime rates increased in 2021 – why didn’t these programs stop the increase in crime?

The data shows a clear cause and effect. When progressives extremists defunded the Seattle Police Department and the Washington Legislature caved into rioters’ demands to pass anti-police bills and not fix the state’s drug possession laws, crime went up. When citizens reinstated police pursuit, elected officials passed drug-possession laws, and became tough on repeat criminals, crime drop. 

The passage of I-2113 (allowing police pursuits), reinstating drug laws, focusing on repeat criminals, and passage of 15 commonsense public safety laws had far greater effect on lowering the crime rates than adding a few social programs on top of the thousands already in place.