Crisis-flagged misdemeanors in Seattle: Arrests, referrals, charges, and case dispositions

Abstract

Misdemeanor offenses often involve individuals experiencing behavioral crises such as mental illness, drug and alcohol addiction, and homelessness. Little is known about how individuals in behavioral crisis arrested for misdemeanors are processed through the criminal justice system. In 2015, the Seattle Police Department implemented a Crisis Intervention Policy that employed a crisis template enabling systematic identification of incidents flagged by law enforcement as involving "behavioral crisis" to improve data collection and police response to incidents involving individuals in behavioral crisis. This study employs a quasi-experimental design to examine misdemeanor arrests, charges, referrals, and case dispositions of behavioral crisis-flagged incidents to better understand how individuals who are experiencing behavioral crisis are processed through the misdemeanor justice system. A sample of 505 cases of behavioral-crisis flagged incidents in Seattle from 2016-2018 are compared with a matched random sample of 1053 non-crisis cases examining similarities and differences in arrest, referral, charges, and case disposition. Results show that individuals involved in crisis-flagged incidents are arrested at a consistently higher rate; are more likely to be charged, taken into custody, and incarcerated; and are more likely to be female. Implications for crisis intervention, case processing, and managing individuals who commit misdemeanors while in behavioral crisis are discussed.