Legislative solutions in the spotlight: Rep. Jim Walsh addresses rising crime rates

Hi, it's State Representative Jim Walsh here at the Capitol again. I want to talk with you today about crime and how the state government responds to crime rates in Washington. I've been getting a lot of questions lately of concern about rising crime rates, particularly violent crime, so homicides, rapes and other sex offenses, assaults, and also property crimes. People are concerned about the growing rates of break-ins to cars. These crime rates are up in Washington. People are concerned, what can the state government here in Washington and Olympia do about these rising crime rates? Well, it's a little complicated. Crime does tend to be a localized issue. It flares up in some areas more than others, and that's in the nature of the thing. But there is no doubt that there have been policy decisions made here in Olympia that have generally affected crime rates in Washington, and unfortunately, for the worse, allowing crime rates to go up. You probably know, because we've talked about them in these segments before, that some of the policy changes here in Washington have had to do with criminal pursuits, how law enforcement can chase criminal suspects, either in a vehicle or on foot, and to some degree how law enforcement can detain, can stop a criminal suspect to speak with them, interrogate them, find out if they were related to a crime. By policy changes here at the Capitol, we have made both the pursuits and those inquiries, those detention for questioning, more difficult for law enforcement to do. Now, very lately, we've tried to carve some of that back and restore law enforcement's ability to detain suspects and speak to them and to chase suspects. It's not enough. The recent reforms to the reforms haven't gone far enough to return to law enforcement the tools that they need to fight crime at the local level. But there's also another issue, which is a little less direct, but does have an effect on the ability of law enforcement to fight crime and deter crime in Washington. That has to do with so-called qualified immunity. That is, how law enforcement officers can be held personally liable, responsible for bad actions they may take in the course of working their jobs. Now, this has been a controversial issue for many years. It's not a new issue. What is the right level of qualified immunity? When do we hold law enforcement officers responsible, and when do they have the protection of their agency and of the government against allegations they behave badly? Again, it's a matter of a swinging pendulum. We've made the standards in Washington state for holding law enforcement officers personally liable for actions they take too low. Now, some would say it was too high before, but we haven't found that middle spot where law enforcement officers can have some immunity for actions they take in the course of doing their jobs properly, yet still be held accountable for when they act badly or illegally. We haven't found that right middle ground yet, and in the coming session, we need to look more for the right compromise, the right calibration of our state's policy on these matters. And another point of interest in this discussion is, while law enforcement officers can be held liable for bad actions they take in the course of their work, other people involved in the justice system are not. Judges are not held responsible for actions that they take that may affect crime rates down the road. For example, releasing criminal defendants on either low bond or no bond, and those criminal defendants go out in the public again and occasionally commit more crimes. Judges in some cases also issue very lenient sentences to violent criminals who get out of custody and go and commit more crimes again. Likewise, prosecutors, the state's attorneys who prosecute crimes, are not always held personally liable when they make bad decisions. So if we're going to hold frontline law enforcement officers liable for their actions, we need to look at policy that would hold other players in the justice system responsible when they act badly. So this is going to be an ongoing conversation. If we can find that right middle ground, which does protect the people involved in our justice system from spurious allegations and vexatious harassing allegations, but do hold them accountable for their actions, then I think we will see a more effective justice system in Washington and in the long run, those crime rates going back down again, which is really what we all want to see. That's the good goal. The rest is process toward that end. I hope this has been a helpful update. It's certainly fall here at the Capitol, and I look forward to talking with you again soon.