Information from King County

King County Executive Dow Constantine announced on Wednesday the creation of a six-part strategy responding to the recommendations formed by the Care and Closure Advisory Committee and subcommittees to create community-based alternatives in order to end traditional youth detention in King County. The recommendations include refocusing support systems for youth when they return home and strengthening community infrastructure.

In mid-2020 Executive Constantine proposed the County continue working toward reducing youth involvement with the criminal legal system and ending the racial disproportionality in detention stemming from generations of systemic racism. Since then, King County has collaborated with harmed youth, families, and trusted community-based organizations to create a new vision for youth accountability and healing, fostering true community safety.

In a final progress report transmitted to the King County Council today, the Department of Community and Human Services (DCHS) outlined the recommendations and the work to date on the initiative, and the Executive’s proposal for implementation of the new strategy. The recommendations were informed by nearly 1,800 community members and research on existing models in other jurisdictions throughout the country.

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“Study after study shows that youth incarceration is a system that does not work. The profound racial disparities in the youth criminal legal system are a result of racist realities embedded in many systems, from health care to educational to economic, as well as the legal system itself. If we want a different future, we must affirmatively choose to do better. That will require new systems, spaces, practices, and the collaboration of our entire community,” said Executive Constantine. “I want to thank the Advisory Committee for these significant and transformative recommendations that outline the vision. Now, we will work across agencies to resource and implement these strategies, including working with DAJD to improve conditions in the existing detention facility as we turn that vision into a reality. Together we can create bold and comprehensive change that can ensure healing, accountability, and community safety.”

Advisory Committee Recommendations   

The Advisory Committee’s recommendations identify the essential components of an alternative system needed to support youth and their healing, accountability, and community safety and close the youth detention center.

1. Create, operate, and maintain a 24/7 respite and receiving center where law enforcement will take all youth under 18 years old upon arrest unless they can be released upon entering the center.
2. Provide very short-term respite housing at the respite and receiving center for youth who cannot go home due to safety reasons.
3. Provide enhanced immediate supports when youth return home to their families or are placed in kinship care with extended family members.
4. Create, contract, and provide oversight to a network of diverse community care homes where youth would stay while their court case proceeds if they are unable to go home because of safety concerns.
5. Strengthen community infrastructure and capacity to ensure all youth have access to and can benefit from culturally relevant, developmentally appropriate, and youth- and family-centered supports that address their identified needs, regardless of whether they are at home, with a relative, or at a community care home. 
6. Ensure the next steps for these recommendations are informed by and centered on input, expertise, and ideas of the community members most directly impacted by the youth legal system.

The Advisory Committee reached broad consensus across a majority of the six recommendations showing a commitment to create alternatives that support all youth under 18 years old and uphold community safety. Further deliberation is needed on how the recommended respite and receiving center with short-term housing can maintain the safety of youth and safety for the community. 

The Advisory Committee also identified accomplishing this significant transformation and closing the youth detention center will require more time to allow for the finalization, resourcing, and implementation of these recommendations, which are not feasible to complete by 2025. The next phase of planning and implementation described in the report is anticipated to take until at least 2028 for the first components of the new system to be funded, implemented, and begin operations.

David Muhammad, the Executive Director of National Institute for Criminal Justice Reform, a national non-profit technical assistance provider on youth legal systems and criminal legal system transformation, expressed his support for the Care and Closure project. "With these recommendations and the outlined timeline for development and implementation, King County is taking significant and important steps forward in improving the treatment and outcomes of court involved youth,” he said.

“King County is part of a growing number of jurisdictions around the country that are committed to following the research on what works to reduce violence and improve public safety, and transitioning away from the types of institutions that have historically failed to deliver effective results, for either youth in their care or for the public,” continued Muhammad. “NICJR looks forward to working with Executive Constantine and his staff to move this plan forward, in support of their essential objectives of youth healing, accountability and community safety."

Six-Step Strategy

The Executive’s Office will now oversee an inter-departmental team on strategy and implementation that ranges from public engagement to legal and regulatory recommendations. The six actions create the next phase of strategy planning and implementation.

1. Improve current conditions in the youth detention center at the CCFJC and develop budget proposals for those improvements by March 31, 2024.
2. Develop proposals and recommendations for legal-regulatory changes at the state level by October 15, 2024.
3. Develop detailed implementation and budget plans for Advisory Committee recommendations 3, 4, and 5 by February 15, 2025.
4. Hold engagement and education opportunities through community meetings, webinars, and town halls on the harms of youth detention throughout 2024.
5. Reconvene the Advisory Committee to further deliberate and clarify recommendations 1 and 2 by January 2025.
6. Develop career pathways and professional development opportunities for CCJFC detention staff on an ongoing basis.

Beginning in March 2022, Executive Constantine convened the Advisory Committee, a group comprised of community partners, systems partners, and impacted community members, to guide the project and co-create recommendations informed by community input. The Advisory Committee launched three subcommittees in 2023 to deepen the project’s development of the recommendations and broaden the perspectives informing the recommendations.

DCHS engaged nearly 1,800 impacted community members as part of the process to develop the recommendations. Since November 2022, DCHS held 28 listening sessions with youth in detention and engaged nearly 80 youth. DCHS partnered and invested in 11 community partners to engage more than 1,200 impacted youth, families, and harmed community members in more than 50 events. The Department of Adult and Juvenile Detention held more than 15 different listening sessions with staff, with four facilitated in partnership with DCHS.