Many arrested in April’s Seattle crime crackdown not eligible for diversion program

Rather than sending suspected drug dealers that were arrested during Seattle’s April crime crackdown to prison, the plan was to enroll “some” in a diversion program.

That “some” was 11 out of at least 95 people arrested, so far.

Many of the people arrested in the 9.5 blocks of downtown, between First and Fourth avenues and Union and Stewart streets, were not eligible for the Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion program.

“Almost all the people arrested in the nine-and-a-half blocks are being dealt with in the old way,” Lisa Daugaard, deputy director of Public Defender Association, said on Mike McGinn’s “You. Me. Us. Now.” podcast.

The “old way” she refers to is the process of arresting, booking, prosecuting, and convicting.

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The arrests were made by Seattle police in an effort to crack down on drug dealing and associated crime.

The LEAD pre-booking diversion pilot program would have redirected those low-level offenders to community-based services, instead of jail and prosecution.

The intention was to divert as many as possible to LEAD, Daugaard said. It turns out eligibility kept “a lot” of people out.

“We’ve worked on revising those eligibility barriers,” Daugaard said.

As of Monday, 11 people have been referred to the program, according to Senior Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Mary Barbosa. There are another 10-15 who are eligible, but have not been located since being arrested in April, she said.

“Not everyone involved has been arrested or referred yet,” she said.

There were multiple reasons why someone wasn’t eligible, including being convicted of burglary, robbery or domestic violence in the last 10 years.

“Those were the big dis-qualifiers,” Barbosa said.

Though city leaders are willing to use the LEAD program, they ended up having to divert back to prosecution for the low-level offenses, Daugaard said. That makes people unemployable and makes it more difficult for them to find housing, she said.