Whatcom County officials describe effects of loosening jail booking restrictions; courts see backlog, jail sees more people with serious mental illness

WHATCOM COUNTY, Wash. — Whatcom County law enforcement and court officials told the county's Incarceration Prevention and Reduction Task Force on May 12 that a February change to jail booking guidelines is allowing more arrests but also revealing a large backlog of outstanding warrants and increasing demand on jail behavioral-health services.

Sheriff Tanksley said he changed local booking restrictions on Feb. 1 to tie whether officers may book someone to jail capacity rather than to lists of specific charges, and to let officers see in real time in the county computer-aided dispatch and records system (CAD/CAR) whether the jail is accepting male or female bookings. "What I did in February of this year, I modified those booking restrictions to be based upon jail capacity and not just charges," he said.

The policy change has led to more bookings but not a sustained rise in average daily population, county officials said. Undersheriff Harris reported a roughly 3–5 more bookings per day since restrictions were loosened: February 2024 had 315 bookings versus 444 in February 2025; March and April 2025 showed similar year-over-year increases. At the same time, Harris said the county identified thousands of outstanding warrants tied to events during the COVID-era booking restrictions, which he said had grown to "over, I believe, 8,500 warrants in Whatcom…