Dow ConstantineVerified account

Re-imagining the criminal legal system. As we prepare the budget later this year, I intend to propose a phased closing of the King County Correctional Center after the pandemic.

I will propose additional investments to help create safe and community-based solutions for the increasingly difficult youth cases that remain, and seek to fully convert the remaining youth detention capacity to other uses as quickly as possible, and no later than 2025.

Three out of every four dollars in the county General Fund is spent on crime, and courts and corrections. We are paying into an entire criminal legal system money that could be better spent to promote opportunity and human potential.

These are the kinds of work that King County does best with its human services and public health programs. I am intent on shifting public dollars away from systems that can't deliver what we need - that leave us far short of our goals.

We need to instead fund community supports that keep the public safe, and put people on a path to success. Next, we're focusing on ensuring every resident has a safe and secure place to call home.

Once they got a place of their own, shelter residents who had struggled with basic needs began to stabilize. They were able to secure their belongings, get a full night’s sleep, take a hot shower, do laundry. A few clients landed jobs. Behavioral health emergencies declined.

There have been more that 300 COVID tests at the Renton hotel and not a single infection. None. We now set before us the task of ensuring that every person should have the dignity of a place to call home. Wherever possible, we will not return to long-term congregate spaces.