A holistic approach is a nice to have, not a must have. As budget and public safety improves, the outreach workers should be given a chance to prove themselves.

It's all just Police Theatre.

They do this every few years, it never works, and you can't hire and train cops that fast so it never ever works.

Think of it as Downtown stealing cops from the rest of the city, because that's what it does mean. So Magnolia and Montlake and Queen Anne will have fewer cops.

@3: There wouldn't be "stealing cops from the rest of the city" if the city's force was sufficiently staffed. The city council and people like you made them feel unwelcome, so most of them left. Human nature I guess.

As the Mayor of San Francisco said... its time to quit pretending social services are going to solve these problems.

First, stop the bad behavior, which is arrest them. Get them off the streets.

... Then you "send in the clowns"... I mean social workers.

Personally, I'd ship their sorry asses off to a rehabilitation camp where they get up in the morning, work, go to skills classes, dry out, get drug/alcohol treatment, learn how to re-enter society and be productive.

I know, I know... totally hard to digest this "ground breaking" concept.... Its so complicated.

@6 you're describing social services.

"The council reported last week that the city’s spending has outpaced the general revenue funds. Budget Chair Teresa Mosqueda said she expects a “budget crunch” in the supplemental budget."

Jesus Christ. Just last month Mosqueda was patting herself on the back about JumpStart tax revenue exceeding forecasts: https://council.seattle.gov/2022/02/14/councilmember-mosqueda-celebrates-first-revenue-returns-from-progressive-jumpstart-seattle-tax/

Was that prior statement just bullshit, or has the council already managed to piss away the JumpStart revenue?

Expanding on my @8,

The 2022 budget also includes $116 million from the Coronavirus Local Fiscal Recovery fund. This, of course, is on top of the $440 million in prior CLFR, ARPA, and CARES funding the city received in 2021.

Holistic happens when we’re not in emergency, 15-year olds getting shot on the street mode. Need to stop the bleeding before you can think about doing yoga and organic diets, to use a health care analogy.

@8 No, that money had a dedicated purpose per the legislation so it can not to be put into the general fund.

The omicron wave delayed back to work and continued to put pressure on downtown retail (not to mention the general disorder). Most likely the actuals are coming in well below forecast. There will be an official update from the city budget office in April and then we can see where we are at. It does seem odd though considering the state has so much money they don't know what to do with it.

@7 One and the same. Social Workers are the clowns who make up Social Services.

If they social services and their Minions... ergo the social workers were effective then we would not have the hot mess we do all over the city... homeless, vagrants, drug riddled miscreants camping all over the city.

@4 felt unwelcome? Lol you would think police would have thicker skin than that. We asked for them to be held accountable for their actions

...And they decided to all throw a hissy fit and get blue flue

Police do not achieve 100% success rate: "oh well, the job is hard, they are doing their best, people are against them, they don't have enough money"

Social workers do not achieve a 100% success rate: "these people are useless! what's the point? there will still be criminals! what a waste of money"

The Stranger… where down is up and up is down. Please businesses stop advertising in this news fir drug addicts.

"The city council and people like you made them feel unwelcome, so most of them left."

Raindrop, that's plenty histrionic, even for you. "Most" of the force is still here. The attrition, aside from the anti-max nitwits (which was something like twelve, and good riddance) was because they were eligible for retirement.

You're almost as big a drama queen as the cops themselves. I suggest laying down in a darkened room with a cool washcloth over your eyes for the next couple of years.

Oh no, 80 felons temporarily off the streets! Probably not even that many because I bet the majority of them weren't remanded to prison while waiting for their cases to be heard. Gasp!
Hard to feel about about people getting arrested for felony assault, felony gun charges, felony warrant violations, felony-level drug dealing, and felony-level theft.

Cry. Me. A. River.

@19: You correct on "most" but barely. Here are the facts:

An SPD spokesperson says the number of deployable officers is just “around 950” as the city and region experiences a surge of violent crime. But it is actually much worse.

As of Jan. 10, while there are 948 officers on the force, that number includes recruits not yet sworn (36), students in field training (25), and unavailable officers (between 123 and 187).

The number of deployable sworn Seattle Police Officers Guild (SPOG) members is 880. City officials have previously said the SPD should be at 1,500-1,600, minimum.

https://mynorthwest.com/3306940/rantz-seattle-police-shed-170-officers-2021-more/

Sorry you hate cops. But that's your problem and I hope you never have to dial 911.

'In the fall of 2020, for instance, the [JustCARE] program started addressing a stolen property resale operation at 8th and King. After three weeks of work, Daugaard said the situation was “completely resolved.”'

WTF? Why did Seattle not send police to end an organized crime operation? Why is it a success when such criminals are not sent to prison? If JustCARE works so well, why were they not at other camps, helping homeless folks (who are not participating in organized crime) get housed? How many more years of homelessness crisis will it take before Seattle learns to use the correct tool for each type of job?

@16: Seattle spends over $100M annually on services for the homeless, and has done so for each of the past five years. As the homeless situation has visibly gotten much worse over that time, defenders of the social services approach have long since thrown this entire expenditure down the Memory Hole. This is yet another post at the Stranger which implies Seattle spends little on the homeless, even as Seattle continues to spend ~$10k per homeless person annually.

One of the biggest failings of the "Defund the Police" slogan was that it created the unrealistic expectation that the social services that would replace the worst aspects of policing could be had on the cheap. The promise that the city could just fire some cops and use the savings to implement social services that would prove not just AS effective but MORE effective at reducing crime -- by addressing the "root causes," the argument went -- was always pie-in-the-sky.

Shifting spending from law enforcement to social spending is a worthy long-term goal, but it's going to require a significant up-front investment and will have to be evidence-based, meaning programs that show results get more funding in the next budget, and under-performing programs get cut.

It shouldn't surprise anyone that there is little political will for shifting spending away from law enforcement when crime is peaking. The idea that the electorate would tolerate ten to twenty years of elevated crime while they wait for those social services to address root causes was also an unrealistic expectation. The last election cycle has proven that.

Maybe in ten years when these new social services approaches we've been hearing about have done such a good job addressing root causes that crime and homelessness are a distant memory, people will be receptive to calls to cut funding for the criminal justice approach to social problems.

It must be awesome being a "Progressive" politician in this city. You get to defer any and all problems until some unknown time in the distant future when the Seattle City Council is going to singlehandedly solve the worlds inequities. And the leftists just eat that all up and demand zero accountability from their representatives.

Raindrop dear, I don't hate the police. I just don't fetishize them like you do. And like a lot of them do. We need good, effective law enforcement. We don't need drama queen law enforcement.

And I daresay that I - through my job - have had much more interaction with the police than you ever will. Maybe that's why I have a more realistic view of the situation than you. After all, I don't retreat to the nearest bedroom with a jar of Abolene every time I think of a police officer.

When you find a city or town that does not have drama queen law enforcement, let me know.. The city council's idea to loosen up the laws has put an " anything goes reputation for our city".Just like jobs and money draw out of staters here in droves, so does the lack of consequence for crime etc, as that also draws " the problem" in droves.