Whatcom County's Incarceration Prevention and Reduction Task Force on Dec. 15 approved its annual year-end report, adopted two legislative priorities focused on crisis response centers and agreed to form a work group to define recidivism and develop metrics.

Year-end report: Staff said the year-end report was in meeting packets and asked for approval. A member moved to approve the report, a second was made and the chair called the vote. The clerk reported seeing all hands raised "except for prosecutor Ritchie." The motion passed and the task force approved the report.

Legislative priorities: The task force discussed recommendations from a legislative-priorities work group and the executive's office focused on two items tied to the community resource/crisis response center (CRC) strategy. First, the work group recommended a technical change to the state proviso language governing the capital allocation to allow the county to operate the facility consistent with a locally designed community-based integrated behavioral-health model rather than a narrow statutory design. Second, the group asked the task force to back state-level work to secure sustainable operating and reimbursement models for CRCs: clearer licensing and payment structures, coverage for non-Medicaid clients and alignment with 988 and mobile crisis response services.

The task force moved to adopt those two priorities. A motion was made, seconded and approved; Judge Jones recorded an abstention. No additional appropriation was requested for capital funds; the priorities are a request for legislative language and operating-policy work.

Recidivism framework: The task force then took up a proposed three-pillar recidivism framework (system recidivism, legal recidivism, and programmatic recidivism) intended to clarify what different measures would capture. Members raised technical questions about whether "bookings" or "charges" are the right unit, which jurisdictions' data are included, and what time windows should be used (one year, three years, etc.). Several members volunteered to join a work group to develop detailed definitions and data fields; the chair and others noted that the county may need a dedicated staff position to manage these measures and the related public dashboard.

Other business: The task force reviewed and approved its 2026 meeting calendar after a brief conversation about cadence and alignment with the Bellingham City Council schedule. Committee chairs gave short updates on land-acknowledgment work, data-field definitions for a public dashboard and racial-disparities analysis to inform JPOP planning.

Next steps: Volunteers will convene a recidivism-definition work group and staff will continue preparing data for a preliminary dashboard. The legislative-priority items will be carried forward by the executive's office and the task-force work group for potential advocacy in Olympia.