Whatcom County task force reviews draft Justice Project measures, flags major data-access gaps

At a June 5 meeting of the Index Subcommittee of Whatcom County’s Incarceration Prevention and Reduction Task Force, VillageReach consultant Julia Garette presented a near-final draft of evaluation measures for the county’s Justice Project and outlined which local data systems can and cannot currently feed a centralized data warehouse.

Garette said the draft is still being refined and described a three-tier evaluation approach — process, outcome and impact — intended to answer “how much did we do, how well did we do it, and is anyone better off?” The metrics she highlighted include the number of jail bookings, average length of stay, connections to care at release and recidivism rates as population-level outcomes tied to the project’s five strategies and 15 projects.

Why this matters: committee members said reliable, linked data are needed to measure whether the Justice Project reduces jail use and improves health and safety in Whatcom County. At several points speakers warned administrative and legal barriers mean some key sources — notably hospital electronic health records and many court case-management systems — are not currently available to the county’s analytic infrastructure.

Garette framed the evaluation plan using a results-based accountability structure: process evaluation for activities tied to the 15 projects; outcome evaluation for system-, services- and facility-level definitions of success; and impact evaluation to detect population-level changes in health and safety for residents involved with behavioral health and the criminal legal system. She cautioned that population-level indicators cannot be attributed solely to the Justice Project if they change over time.

The committee then reviewed a color-coded inventory mapping local data systems to the sequential intercept model. Attendees broadly agreed that computer-aided dispatch (CAD)/county 911 and Fire/EMS data can be accessed and pulled into the county data warehouse, and that the county’s jail management system (Spillman) is available for analysis. But several systems were identified as inaccessible or only accessible with substantial administrative work:

- St. Joseph’s Hospital electronic health records (EPIC): speakers said the hospital’s records are effectively inaccessible without a significant administrative project, including a modified data-sharing agreement and a possible exemption through the state Department of Health. One participant said hospital engagement efforts over the past decade had produced “extremely limited success.”

- Community behavioral-health provider data and other community-based organization records: committee members noted HIPAA and the transcript’s cited “94 1 42” (described in the meeting as restrictions on substance use disorder records) create similar constraints on sharing client-level data across systems unless new administrative processes or client consent mechanisms are developed. Organizations named in discussion included Compass Health, Lifeline Connections and Opportunity Council.

- Court and case-management systems (Odyssey, court CMS and related platforms): the group reported no current access. One attendee described CCM/DCCM as a “stopgap” used in therapeutic courts that is not designed to export data; Odyssey and other court systems provide information to the Administrative Office of the Courts but are not locally accessible in a form ready for county analytics.

- Defender and prosecutor records: the transcript records that public defender systems (Justice Works Defender) and prosecutor case-management data are not currently accessible to the county. Ryan Anderson of the Bellingham Prosecutor’s Office told the committee the office is implementing the PBK case-management system this summer and that, while outside users will not have direct access to individual case files, the system can generate reports based on fields prosecutors populate. Anderson said those reports could supply aggregate items such as counts by charge, housing status or demographic fields, depending on what the office chooses to record.

Committee members and staff discussed the practical consequences of these limits. Garette noted that absent access to hospital and many community-provider datasets, key clinical determinations and repeated emergency-room interactions would be missing from any person-level trajectories linking emergency response, jail bookings and reentry services. As Garette put it, “we can’t track what we can’t define,” urging the group to agree on operational definitions (for example, of recidivism, race and ethnicity categories, and what counts as a connection to care) before building public-facing dashboards.

Several attendees emphasized the administrative work required to change the status quo. Options discussed included county-level data-sharing agreements, direction from the County Executive or County Attorney’s Office, and engagement with the Administrative Office of the Courts for court-system access. The consultant and staff agreed that many of the currently red or pink cells in the inventory could be addressed only with a formal administrative project and signatures from relevant agencies.

Next steps and committee direction: Garette said she will redirect her remaining contract hours from mock-up dashboards toward producing a more detailed set of recommendations on data systems and next steps, including definitions that would be required to make metrics comparable across systems. Committee leadership and staff said they will continue to clarify which office or entity would champion the administrative work needed to obtain new datasets. The subcommittee scheduled the next Index meeting for August 7.

Public comment: Marty (attendee) urged the county to publish a small set of graphics now — for example, booking counts (with notes about restrictions), average daily jail population and average length of stay — as a quarterly update on the Justice Project website to provide some transparency while larger data-access work continues. “Booking data with qualifications noted on it — when restrictions were in place, when they were lifted — average daily population in the jail, and average length of stay in the jail,” Marty said.

The meeting produced no formal votes. Committee members and staff framed the outcome as agreement to shift the consultant’s focus, produce a prioritized list of administrative steps to secure more datasets, and return with more-developed recommendations in August.