{"id":7081,"date":"2026-08-21T11:36:42","date_gmt":"2026-08-21T11:36:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/metrotransitreview.com\/?p=7081"},"modified":"2026-08-21T11:36:42","modified_gmt":"2026-08-21T11:36:42","slug":"criminal-justice-reform-is-a-bust-and-hidden-data-told-the-truth-all-along","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/metrotransitreview.com\/?p=7081","title":{"rendered":"Criminal justice reform is a bust \u2014 and hidden data told the truth all along"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

America\u2019s blue cities and states have made the criminal-justice system a revolving door for prolific offenders.<\/p>\n

Read more Seattle Times writer quits over spiked Sophie Cunningham column<\/a><\/p>\n

Police arrest them.<\/p>\n

Prosecutors charge them . . . sometimes.<\/p>\n

Then bail reforms, diversion programs and alternatives to incarceration send them right back onto the streets to be arrested again. And again.<\/p>\n

New York dramatically curtailed cash bail and pretrial detention.<\/p>\n

California embraced diversion and alternatives to incarceration.<\/p>\n

New Jersey largely replaced cash bail with a system favoring pretrial release.<\/p>\n

Those states, along with cities nationwide, poured millions into programs designed to keep offenders out of jail \u2014 based in part on the evidence provided by an approach pioneered in Seattle, Wash., in 2011.<\/p>\n

But that \u201cevidence-based\u201d effort wasn\u2019t nearly as successful as America was told.<\/p>\n

Seattle\u2019s Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion, or LEAD, diverts offenders away from jail and prosecution into case management and services.<\/p>\n

Its stated primary goal: reducing recidivism.<\/p>\n

Participants in LEAD, its boosters said, were 58% less likely to be arrested for any crime; felony charges against them dropped 39%.<\/p>\n

They were 46% more likely to \u201cbe on the employment continuum\u201d and 89% more likely to be permanently housed \u2014 dramatic improvements.<\/p>\n

In 2019, LEAD architect Lisa Daugaard invited me to meet with her organization and hear them out.<\/p>\n

Her team told me success stories and heartbreaking tales about addiction and homelessness to explain why diversion was more compassionate and effective than putting offenders behind bars.<\/p>\n

So I asked the obvious question: Where\u2019s the data?<\/p>\n

They couldn\u2019t show me.<\/p>\n

Seven years later, we finally have it.<\/p>\n

Eric Zimmerman, safety solutions policy director for the Washington Policy Center, explored LEAD\u2019s numbers in a new policy brief released this month.<\/p>\n

He discovered zero clear difference in arrest rates between LEAD participants and a control group.<\/p>\n

Of 176 LEAD participants, 91% remained unemployed, contrary to LEAD\u2019s claims.<\/p>\n

Of 146 participants who entered the program without permanent housing, Zimmerman estimates that just 19 were housed in any given month over the course of an 18-month period.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, according to 2019 Bureau of Labor Statistics data tracking men after more than six months of incarceration, 33.9% were employed within one week of release; by week 10, 50.3% had jobs, and employment generally remained between 50% and 58% through roughly a year and a half after release.<\/p>\n

But with LEAD, only 9% of participants were employed during an 18-month follow-up \u2014 a staggering failure.<\/p>\n

While the data didn\u2019t add up, the accolades did.<\/p>\n

Daugaard received a $625,000 MacArthur Fellowship in 2019 thanks to LEAD\u2019s \u201cmeasurable outcomes\u201d in recidivism, employment and housing, the prestigious foundation gushed.<\/p>\n

Read more I quit my 11-year job after the Seattle Times killed my Sophie Cunningham column \u2014 read it here<\/a><\/p>\n

In 2013 Santa Fe, NM, became the second city to replicate Seattle\u2019s model \u2014 \u00a0and its evaluation of that three-year pilot program should have raised alarms: Santa Fe researchers found LEAD participants\u2019 average arrests increased<\/em> 41%, according to a 2018 report.<\/p>\n

But the ball was already rolling: In July 2015, the Obama administration presented Seattle\u2019s program to representatives from more than 30 cities, boosting it as an innovative way to keep offenders out of jail.<\/p>\n

Albany adopted LEAD in 2016, and the next year New York state legislators proposed expanding it statewide, in a bill that funded law-enforcement diversion programs by claiming that Seattle\u2019s participants were \u201c58% less likely to recidivate.\u201d<\/p>\n

Then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed it into law in 2018.<\/p>\n

California lawmakers similarly cited Seattle\u2019s supposed 58% arrest reduction while considering LEAD pilots.<\/p>\n

New Jersey announced $6 million in federal Justice Department funding for LEAD pilots in six areas.<\/p>\n

Congressional appropriators directed millions toward additional LEAD sites.<\/p>\n

By 2021, 42 communities in 21 states had established LEAD programs, while nearly 80 more were developing or exploring them.<\/p>\n

New York\u2019s disastrous 2019 bail reforms reflected the same anti-incarceration criminal-justice philosophy.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019ve said all along, \u2018we can prove that it drives fewer arrests in the future, and it drives a reduction in felonies for people participating\u2019,\u201d Zimmerman told me.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut we can look at the research now and say, that\u2019s not what the research ever said.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n

Zimmerman\u2019s work makes it clear that jurisdictions must demand the data on LEAD and programs like it.<\/p>\n

They should commission independent audits and require transparent reporting of mortality rates, drug abstinence, employment, income growth and housing independence.<\/p>\n

Taxpayers shouldn\u2019t keep funding feel-good programs without hard evidence that the claims used to justify that funding are actually true.<\/p>\n

Make the soft-on-crime advocates prove their models work \u2014 before letting them conduct any more experiments on the rest of us.<\/p>\n

Ari Hoffman hosts \u201cThe Ari Hoffman Show\u201d on Seattle\u2019s Talk Radio 570 KVI and is the Post Millennial\u2019s West Coast editor.<\/em><\/p>\n

Read more Texts reveal married doctor admitted torrid affair with LI stripper was \u2018worst mistake of my life\u2019: report<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Supposedly \u201cevidence-based\u201d bail reforms, diversion programs and alternatives to incarceration aren’t nearly as successful as America was told \u2014 and a new analysis reveals the real data.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7080,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7081","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinion"],"yoast_head":"\nCriminal justice reform is a bust \u2014 and hidden data told the truth all along - Metro Transit Review<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/metrotransitreview.com\/?p=7081\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Criminal justice reform is a bust \u2014 and hidden data told the truth all along - 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