At the Nov. 24 meeting of Whatcom County's IPRTF, public defender director Stark argued that "true diversion" should occur prior to charging so people never enter the criminal legal system. "The only way you can accomplish true diversion is prior to charging," Stark said, urging prosecutorial engagement in pre-charge diversion options and pointing to juvenile diversion as a model.

Prosecutor Eric Ritchie pushed back on the terminology and emphasized that different people need different responses. "There's a different diversion for everyone," Ritchie said, adding that some people need court oversight or the threat of sanction to engage in treatment.

Chief Mertzig raised a separate operational barrier: booking restrictions. When asked if she meant booking limits were impeding diversion, the chief confirmed women "are not able to be booked unless it's a violent felony," a policy that narrows options for law enforcement to place people into programmatic alternatives.

Multiple members called for data-driven evaluation to guide investment. Melora said Health & Community Services secured Health Care Authority funds for a two-year evaluation of response-system programs, with a solicitation planned for January and an evaluator report expected by June 2027. "We were able to secure a nice chunk of money from the Health Care Authority to do a 2 year evaluation of just the response systems division programs," Melora said.

Members asked for clearer definitions (including the term "deflection") and a public-facing data dashboard to track outcomes, recidivism and racial disparities. Miriam and others noted limited existing data on diversion program efficacy and pushed for transparent metrics to inform scaling or reallocation of resources.

Next steps included preparing analytic questions for the forthcoming evaluator and ensuring the February SIM workshop and implementation-plan update incorporate the data needs identified by the group.