Lawmakers are tasked with making decisions about important policy changes. When making these decisions, lawmakers consult a variety of information including discussions with key stakeholders, consideration of public testimony, and analysis of available data. Understanding the potential impacts of a policy change, good or bad, is necessary to make informed policy decisions. Increasingly, lawmakers have access to a variety of impact statements that serve to predict the likely effects of policy changes such as financial impact statements and health impact statements. This report provides an overview of a new type of impact statement – Racial and Ethnic Impact Statements (REISs) – which seek to anticipate the potential impacts of policy changes on different racial and ethnic groups. This report begins with a discussion of the purpose and use of REISs and an overview of the different characteristics of the processes for producing REISs as implemented in other states. The report then discusses previous work regarding the use of REISs in Washington and provides a look at historical trends of disproportionality in arrests, convictions, and incarceration in Washington. This report concludes with an outline of the processes that the Public Safety Policy and Research Center (PSPRC) intends to use to begin producing REISs for proposed legislation involving criminal justice reforms starting in the 2025 Legislative Session as a service for the Sentencing Guidelines Commission (SGC).

Provides statewide data by county on respondents’ awareness of serious crimes committed in their neighborhoods in 2006

This project aims to connect data from multiple agencies to detail the relationship between arrests, court cases, and corrections.

This project endeavors to assess disparities in the criminal justice system by each decision point.

This project analyzes COVID-19 impacts on criminal justice data. Specifically, it focuses on reported National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS) offenses and Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs (WASPC) arrests and bookings.

This report analyzes COVID-19 impacts on criminal justice data. Specifically, it focuses on the differences amongst adult and juvenile arrests, adult sentencing and juvenile dispositions, adult and juvenile carceral admissions between 2020 and previous years. This type of analysis can help support state and federal policymakers in determining potential next steps in addressing the pandemic’s impact on the criminal justice system – both in the short-term and in the long-term.

Research and Data Analysis Division, Department of Social and Health Services
Identifies key risk and protective factors associated with criminal justice involvement among youth transitioning to adulthood the year after aging out of foster care.

Statistical Analysis Center

Statistics on the arrest rates over a 15 year period for those registering as sex offenders in Washington.