Whatcom County committee lays groundwork for Justice Project performance measurement plan

The Justice Project Oversight and Planning Committee met Feb. 20 and spent the bulk of its meeting working with consultant Julia Grant of VillageReach to define what “success” should look like for the county’s Justice Project and to set next steps for drafting performance measures.

Grant told the committee the work will focus on three pieces: goals and outcomes, the performance metrics that will show whether the goals are met, and the data elements needed to populate those metrics. “When we talk about a performance measurement plan, what are we actually talking about? What goes into that? And there are 3 main things,” Julia Grant said.

The committee discussed five strategy-level outcome statements pulled from the Justice Project implementation plan and a needs assessment. Committee members raised several recurring concerns: whether diversion language was too narrowly framed as diversion only from a jail sentence rather than from the criminal-legal system as a whole; whether the phrase “immediate access” to services upon release sets an unrealistic expectation without clarified operational steps; how workforce and housing shortages limit program capacity; and the need for clear baselines and targets.

Stark, identified on the record as representing the public defender’s office, urged broader wording on diversion: “diversion not be simply from a jail sentence, but actually from the criminal justice system at the outset,” he said, arguing that non-arrest diversion could avoid funneling people into prosecution and court. Andrew, of the Bellingham municipal court, said the draft strategy definitions “seem like they're right on point” with what the emerging community court aims to achieve.

Several members recommended that the committee adopt the sequential intercept model as an organizing framework for measuring points of contact where people can be diverted from the legal system. Dean and others flagged the importance of collecting data from community service providers as well as from criminal-justice agencies, and of defining risk and need consistently when identifying who should be eligible for diversion or services.

Grant outlined the process going forward: VillageReach will compile the feedback from this meeting, draft candidate performance measures and targets, and share them with the committee ahead of its March meeting. Committee members will then refine measures and identify which data sources are available and which gaps must be filled before a public-facing dashboard can be built.

The committee did not take a formal vote; members directed the consultant and staff to produce draft measures for review at the March meeting and to map data sources to those measures. Grant said stakeholders will be interviewed at the project level as the work moves forward.

Why it matters: committee members repeatedly said the county needs transparent, measurable indicators to show whether investments in diversion, behavioral health and reentry actually reduce incarceration and improve outcomes. Several participants urged the group to set realistic interim targets rather than an all-or-nothing standard.

The committee will consider draft measures at its next meeting on March 20, at which point project-level metrics and data mappings will be discussed in greater detail.