Just over two years ago, the governor signed a sweeping prison and supervision reform bill into law, making our Pierce County streets safer by developing resources to assist individuals upon their release from prison and paving the way for a more equitable distribution of returning felons throughout Washington.

   We now have 22 months of data that proves not only were the laws successful in shutting off the felon faucet in Pierce County, but stemming the flow of offenders into our state’s prison system and thereby reducing the need to build new prisons in the near future. These new laws require that an offender coming out of prison must be returned to his or her county of origin unless it is determined to be inappropriate under certain circumstances.

   Things have changed dramatically since the bill became law in 2007. The Pierce County prosecutor’s office reports that before the bill there were 150 to 200 offenders per year who should have gone back to their counties of origin but were instead released in to Pierce County.

   According to the Washington State Department of Corrections, between August 2007 (just after SB 6157 became law) and May 2009, 140 offenders who were supposed to be released into our county were diverted elsewhere. During that same period of time, 142 offenders who should have been sent back to the county where they committed their first felony were instead sent to Pierce County. In nearly two years, our county has gained only two more felons than we’re supposed to have, which is a significant turnaround from the decades prior to 2007.

   But the state budget that recently passed the Legislature was written with a bad set of priorities. It makes significant cuts to the 2007 prison reform legislation, on which I worked with Sen. Debbie Regala (D-Tacoma). The budget cuts funding for supervision of low- and moderate-risk offenders upon release from prison and reduces the length of supervision time for serious violent offenders by a year; violent offenders by a year and a half.

   The bipartisan prison reform laws have stabilized the state’s expanding prison population and are saving taxpayers’ money. Unfortunately, budget decisions made in the last session undo some of those reforms by cutting down on who is supervised and for how long. I fear these cuts pose a huge threat to public safety. The crime rate statewide will trend upward again, putting the state in a position where it can’t build expensive prisons fast enough to keep up.