For example, the Seattle Police Department (SPD) could not book individuals arrested for minor offenses, including shoplifting and other non-violent property crimes, into the King County Jail.
The move is a win for local law enforcement, which has long pushed for more tools to fight a four-year crime wave that has continued since the pandemic — despite crime in nearly every other major city declining, an analysis by the Seattle Times showed.
In 2022, Seattle Police spent 18,615 hours responding to organized retail crime calls, equivalent to a year’s worth of work for nine officers.
The change, which went into effect earlier this month, reverses pandemic-era restrictions by King County that kept Seattle police from booking all but the most serious misdemeanors into the slammer.
Now, years after the contagion has morphed into an endemic disease that people will contract many times over the course of their lives, the city has rescinded this policy.
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