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OIG: Data gaps limit Seattle’s ability to judge impact of public drug-use ordinance
Summary
The city inspector general’s early evaluation of the 2023 public drug-use and possession ordinance finds important trends in overdoses and 911 calls but says missing and inconsistent diversion data between SPD and LEAD prevent firm conclusions about whether the ordinance caused an increase in prebooking diversions.
The Office of Inspector General told the Public Safety Committee on Feb. 10 that delays and gaps in law-enforcement and partner data have so far prevented a conclusive evaluation of the 2023 ordinance governing public use and possession of controlled substances.
"Over this period, there were 1,871 drug overdose deaths," Emily Morley, the performance auditor who led the technical analysis, told the committee, and the publicly available King County data showed a rise from roughly one overdose death every other day in 2019 to about two deaths per day by 2023. Morley and Inspector General Lisa Judge said OIG also reviewed 911 call counts related to controlled substances (12,270 calls across the five-year span) and other publicly available trend indicators.
The OIG report focused on how the ordinance’s "threat of harm"…
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