Whatcom County index subcommittee maps local data plan to evaluate Justice Project

The Index Subcommittee of the Incarceration and Prevention Reduction Task Force met on April 3 to review a proposed evaluation and performance measurement plan for the Justice Project. VillageReach consultant Julia Garrett presented recommendations that would combine elements of Justice Counts, Measures for Justice, the Sequential Intercept Model and the Stepping Up initiative to track four primary outcomes: jail bookings, average jail length of stay, connections to care at release, and recidivism.

Garrett said the county will likely need a hybrid approach rather than an off‑the‑shelf product. “What I’ve recommended is that we use a little bit from all of those four different resources,” she said, summarizing a resource-comparison table she planned to circulate after addressing final comments.

The proposal matters because it would provide consistent outcome definitions and formulas (numerator/denominator) to measure progress across the Justice Project’s 15 implementation activities and to identify disparities. Garrett said the subcommittee has prioritized adding behavioral‑health measures and disaggregation by race and ethnicity so the county can surface inequities in both…