WSIPP is conducting a review of the effectiveness and benefit-cost outcomes of treatment programs focused on infant and early childhood mental health (IECMH) and perinatal mental health (PMH). This work is being conducted under a contract approved by WSIPP’s Board of Directors with the Washington State Health Care Authority.

The final report, expected in June 2027, will summarize evidence on the effectiveness of 12–14 IECMH and PMH programs, present benefit-cost findings where evidence is available, and describe key program characteristics.

The 2025 Legislature passed a study to evaluate potential cost savings for the state of Washington if legally responsible individuals, such as parents, are allowed to serve as paid caregivers for their developmentally disabled children. The Washington State Institute for Public Policy will lead the study, with required cooperation from the Office of the State Actuary, the Department of Social and Health Services, the Health Care Authority, and the Department of Children, Youth, and Families to ensure access to necessary data and resources. The study will, to the extent possible, quantify cost savings from reduced reliance on entitlement programs, decreased use of hospitals, foster care, and residential facilities, and any likely additional savings related to this policy.

An initial report is due to the legislature by December 31, 2025, with a final report due by November 15, 2026.

The 2021 Legislature passed 2SHB 1044 expanding the types of postsecondary education programs eligible for state funding in the Department of Corrections’ (DOC) incarceration facilities. The bill directs WSIPP to study recidivism, enrollment, and completion rates of incarcerated persons in the postsecondary education system after release from incarceration. The study will use data from DOC, the Washington Student Achievement Council, and the State Board of Community and Technical Colleges. The study must include the following:

• Patterns and effects on post-release enrollment and participation in the community and technical college sector by individuals who, while incarcerated, participated in postsecondary education;
• Differential outcomes for individuals participating in different types of postsecondary education courses, certificates, and degree programs;
• Changes in enrollment and completion of postsecondary education courses, certificate programs, and degree programs due to the expansion in postsecondary education programming; and
• Recidivism outcomes other than incarceration for those individuals who participated in postsecondary education while incarcerated.

The preliminary report can be found here. A final report is due October 1, 2027.

In 2022, the Washington State Legislature passed 2SHB 1818, which expanded the use of rental vouchers for individuals leaving incarceration in state prisons from three to six months. As a part of this bill, the Legislature directed WSIPP to conduct an evaluation and benefit-cost analysis of Washington’s Housing Voucher Program, accounting for the new expansion to six months. The assignment directs WSIPP to consider not only recidivism outcomes, but also impacts on homelessness, use of public services, and other factors WSIPP deems relevant.

After individuals are transferred out of incarceration to partial confinement or released to the community, case managers refer these individuals to reentry service providers. The Washington State Department of Corrections (DOC) is conducting an experiment to examine methods to increase access to community providers to reduce the likelihood of recidivism. WSIPP’s Board of Directors approved a contract with DOC for WSIPP to evaluate this experiment.

The preliminary report can be found here. The final report is due December 1, 2025.

WSIPP will update and expand its previous analyses of recidivism trends. Earlier reports, covering the period from 1995 to 2014, examined four justice-involved populations: adults convicted of a crime, adults released from prison, youth convicted of a crime, and youth released from Juvenile Rehabilitation (JR) facilities. These reports found a general decline in recidivism across all groups, though the extent of the decline varied by type of recidivism, initial offense, and demographic characteristics, indicating differences across sub-populations. The upcoming update will introduce additional measures of recidivism to provide a more comprehensive understanding of justice system interactions, align methodologies with national best practices to support broader comparisons and improve data automation to enable more frequent and cost-effective reporting.

The study will be published by June 30, 2026.

The legislature recognizes that Washington State agencies face limited electronic access to peer-reviewed journals, often requiring staff to purchase individual articles, outsource searches, or visit libraries—resulting in inefficient and costly use of state resources. Observing that other states have improved access and reduced costs through statewide journal subscription models, the 2025 Legislature tasked WSIPP with exploring whether a similar approach would benefit Washington. This study will examine potential funding options, organizational structures, and mechanisms for providing state employees with electronic access to academic, scholarly, and scientific peer-reviewed journals.

The report is due to the legislature by June 30, 2026.

The 2021 Washington State Legislature directed WSIPP to evaluate the Guided Pathways Model. Guided Pathways is a community and technical college reform that aims to improve student experience and outcomes through changes to academic program structure, advising, instruction, and progress monitoring.

WSIPP’s preliminary report will review the implementation of the Guided Pathways Model in Washington and any available evidence of the effectiveness of the Guided Pathways Model. If possible, this report will also evaluate the effect of the Guided Pathways Model on early student outcomes, including, but not limited to, student retention and persistence, college-level English and math within the first year, graduation and transfer rates. The preliminary report can be found here.

A final report will evaluate the effect of Guided Pathways on longer-term student outcomes including, but not limited to, degree completion, time to degree, transfer to four-year institutions, employment, and earnings, to the extent possible. The final report is due in December 2029.

There is ongoing interest in addressing chronic absenteeism in Washington schools and identifying effective strategies to improve student attendance. This project will investigate which attendance interventions are effective in reducing chronic absenteeism among K–12 students , whether certain approaches work better for specific student populations or grade levels, and whether the benefits of implementing certain interventions outweigh their costs. It will also examine if school-level characteristics like grade-level, income status, mental health indicators, and school climate influence school-wide absenteeism rates.

The study will be published by June 30, 2026.

The Washington State Institute for Public Policy was directed by the 2025 Legislature to develop an inventory of evidence-based and research-based policies and programs aimed at reducing impaired driving and its associated fatalities and serious injuries. In consultation with the Washington Traffic Safety Commission and other relevant entities, WSIPP must compile national and international research related to three specific policy areas: lowering the legal blood alcohol concentration from 0.08, implementing sobriety checkpoints, and increasing enforcement and penalties for impaired driving. WSIPP will publish a report detailing the projected costs and benefits of these policies and programs, including a comparative assessment of their effectiveness. The report may also offer recommendations for future research.

The inventory will be published by June 30, 2026.