City Attorney, King County prosecutors tracking prolific offenders in Seattle

A long overdue collaboration wants to put a dent is some of the crime and chaos in Seattle and King County.

Before the Seattle City Attorney’s Office announced a plan to crack down on repeat offenders this week, the King County Prosecutor’s Office has been tracking some of the area’s most prolific and dangerous offenders.

Over, and over again—they’ve been victimized and traumatized.

Over, and over again—the offenders who target them have cycled the system.

The Seattle Shirt Company has lost count of how many times it’s been broken into.

“I know it’s complicated, but I don’t want to live in Gotham city,” said Mandee Gartland with the Seattle Shirt Company. “It makes us feel vulnerable, it makes us feel as if our city is not protecting us.”

In 2017 the King County Prosecutors Office said it saw the need to start focusing on offenders committing a disproportionate amount of crime.

They created the High Priority Repeat Offender Unit—or ‘HIPRO.’

The unit screens all felony commercial and residential burglaries and car theft cases, then prosecutors figure out if the offenders need prosecution or help.

Deputy prosecuting attorney Patrick Hinds heads up the unit.

“Identifying and focusing on prolific offenders isn’t just as straightforward as saying, ‘we’re going to lock up these people and throw away the key,’’ Hinds said. “It’s also about identifying them so other resources—diversion and appropriate treatment can be brought to bear on them.”

Last year King County prosecutors charged 1,062 felony cases for burglary and auto theft—the vast majority were repeat property offenses.

KOMO News asked prosecutors what they say to people who don’t believe repeat offenders committing dozens and dozens of crimes cannot be rehabilitated.

“What I hear people calling for is they want to feel safe in their community, they want the behavior to stop, they want justice,” said King County Prosecutor’s Office Chief of Staff Leesa Manion. “For some individuals that’s going to be straight prosecution and for others we’ll have to get to the root cause of crime.”

County prosecutors say this method of data-driven prosecution gets results.

The city attorney's office believes that too with their new 'High Utilizer Initiative’—which already identified 118 prolific offenders who’ve committed over 2400 crimes in the last five years.

“Our goal is ultimately to see that justice is served and as part of that, the victim cannot be lost,” said Hinds.

With county prosecutors focusing on felonies, and city attorneys on misdemeanors, they believe it’s a stronger overdue collaboration—like in the case of a repeat offender accused of terrorizing Home Depot. The offices teamed up to aggregate his cases, so he faces felonies.

“Just because someone is a prolific offender, doesn’t mean they’re always committing felonies, doesn’t’ mean they’re always committing misdemeanors. They’re committing sometimes a mixture of both,” said Hinds. “We do the felonies, city attorneys do the misdemeanors, it behooves us to be in communication as much as possible.”

But King County Public Defense criticized the new High Utilizer Initiative and others like it, saying they haven’t worked to solve real problems affecting people in need.

In a series of tweets public defenders said in part, “This tired strategy of arresting, prosecuting, and jailing is expensive and clearly ineffective. A night in jail, according to the Seattle City Budget Office, costs more than $200. For one person for one month, that's at least $6000.”

They added, “The path to safety requires that we address the State of Emergency of Homelessness and the Public Health Crisis of Racism. We're disappointed that once again the system is working to perpetuate itself, not working to help solve real problems affecting people in dire need.”

“It’s just frustrating to me because I know the system works if it’s used properly,” said Gartland. “I don’t know why that wasn’t happening before honestly, I mean common sense. It’s common sense.”

Prosecutors are also calling for more robust funding for service providers who work with offenders.