Pierce County auditors released a report this week that held one surprising bit of news, and another bit that should surprise no one.



The study was conducted to examine a long-held assumption in Tacoma — that people being released under a program designed to thin out an often over-crowded Pierce County Jail population had an adverse impact on public safety. To test the theory, auditors analyzed arrest data of people picked up in a 22-block area, comprising Hilltop and most of downtown.



The gripe issued regularly at City Council meetings is that criminals carted in from all over the county are released into Tacoma prematurely under a program referred to as SIP, or Special Identification Procedure, which allows the jail to book, fingerprint, confirm identification, and release an arrestee before arraignment. Ideally, SIPs are restricted to those arrested for low-level, non-violent misdemeanor offenses. But this most recent report indicates that people are now being released after being charged with crimes as dire as aggravated murder. The so-called revolving door policy has come into frequent use — from 867 SIPs in 2006 to 3,166 in 2007. The 1,037 SIPS in 2008, through May 31, compose nearly 10 percent of bookings.



Data from the report led auditors to conclude that an almost inconsiderable number of people released under the program, and then re-arrested, were from outside of Tacoma. The highest correlation came in 2007, when 33 people booked from outside of Tacoma were later rearrested — a mere one percent.



What surprised auditors, however, was the percentage of homeless people who were rearrested after being released via SIP — a substantial 33 percent.



“In our opinion, that issue has a far larger impact on the jail and on public safety in the surrounding areas than the jail’s decision to SIP an increased number of persons starting in 2007,” the report reads.



Tim Harris, homeless advocate and executive director of Seattle-based publication Real Change, says they have it backwards.



“It looks like they weren’t finding the primary conclusion they were looking for, and went to this overlap of crime and homelessness,” says Harris after reviewing the report. “That shouldn’t be a surprise to anybody.”



Maybe Pierce County auditors didn’t read the report released earlier this year from the Corporation for Supportive Housing, which indicated that 54 percent of people experiencing homelessness report previous incarceration, and that parolees who are homeless are seven times more likely to violate parole than those with housing.



A constellation of issues contributes to the phenomenon, says Harris, but chief causes include drug sentencing laws that bar offenders for receiving public assistance, and inadequate housing and social services programs.



“People are released to desperate circumstances,” he says. “There is good amount of recidivism that goes along with that.”



A recent study from the think tank the Urban Institute suggests that public policy makers could curb re-arrest rates, especially among the homeless, by providing transitional services and housing for repeat offenders — a suggestion that has come under fire in Tacoma in recent years. Proposals for additional transitional housing are regularly opposed at City Council meetings and behind closed doors based on contentions that Tacoma already has more than its fair share of transitional housing, and that more housing for offenders will lead to more crime.



But the Urban Institute insists, contrary to fears, that if cities can identify the oft-imprisoned and provide services to assist their return to the community, the city will save money and reduce crime, and slow the revolving door. Early results from an initiative in New York, for example, show that repeat offenders who are provided permanent supportive housing halved their number of repeat arrests.



“Given economic pressures to cut the jail population and political pressures to improve public safety, the choice is between which approach to programs aimed at frequent users is best, not whether to launch or expand them,” the report concludes.