Robert Barnoski - August 2007

In 1975, the Washington State Legislature established a deferred prosecution option for offenders arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol and/or impairing drugs (DUI). This option was intended to encourage individuals to seek appropriate treatment. Under this option, defendants with a significant alcohol or drug dependence problem may petition the court to defer disposition of their charge until they have completed intensive substance dependence treatment and met other conditions required by the court.

Another option invoked to encourage treatment is prosecutor diversion, which allows the court to maintain supervision over defendants and impose conditions, including treatment and victim restitution.

In 2005, the legislature authorized the Washington Traffic Safety Commission to use federal funds to contract with the Washington State Institute for Public Policy (Institute) to evaluate the impact on recidivism of deferred prosecution, including prosecutor diversion, for DUI cases. In addition, this report examines whether DUI recidivism rates changed after 1998, when legislation was passed limiting eligibility and lengthening the supervision period for the deferred prosecution program.

Robert Barnoski - August 2007

This report focuses on the relative effectiveness of different Promoting Academic Success (PAS) summer school strategies used to help students meet standard on the WASL in August 2006.

Robert Barnoski, Wade Cole - August 2007

The 2006 Legislature directed the Washington State Institute for Public Policy (WSIPP) to conduct a “review and statistical analysis of Washington assessment of student learning [WASL] data” in order to “identify possible barriers to student success or possible causes of the lack of success.” This report examines the relationship between student performance on multiple-choice and open-ended questions on the 10th-grade WASL in spring 2006 by gender, race/ethnicity, language use, poverty status, and enrollment in special education.

Cheryl Milloy - June 2007

Washington’s Sexually Violent Predator (SVP) statute permits the involuntary commitment of persons found by a jury to meet the statutory definition of a sexually violent predator. In a previous report, the Institute examined the recidivism of 89 released sex offenders referred by the Department of Corrections (DOC) as meeting the filing standards for civil commitment petitions, but for whom no petitions were filed.

This report extends the results of the previous study by adding 46 individuals who were referred by sources other than the DOC.

Elizabeth Drake - June 2007

Six juvenile offender programs identified by Institute as evidence-based are profiled through program descriptions, quality assurance information, and cost-benefit figures.

Annie Pennucci, Theresa B. Smith, Robert I. Roth - June 2007

The 2006 Washington State Legislature directed the Institute to "hire a meeting facilitator to conduct a series of meetings with a broad group of stakeholders to examine the strengths and weaknesses of educational services available to deaf and hard of hearing children throughout the state." This report describes the stakeholder consultations conducted and summarizes stakeholder views regarding Washington's educational system for deaf, hard of hearing, and deaf-blind children.

Jim Mayfield - June 2007

In its 2006 regular session, the Legislature charged the Department of Social and Health Services Mental Health Division with establishing a pilot program to provide evidence-based mental health services to children, and the Washington State Institute for Public Policy (Institute) was directed to study the pilot.

The Institute's study will examine outcomes of children eligible from July 2007 through June 2008. A preliminary report will be completed by December 2008, an interim report by December 2009, and a final two-year follow-up report by September 2010.

Annie Pennucci - April 2007

This summary presents findings to date on these topics, organized by report release date.

Robert Barnoski, Wade Cole - April 2007

This report attempts to identify schools whose students performed above and below expectations on the 10th-grade WASL in spring 2006 given their demographic characteristics.

Robert Barnoski, Elizabeth Drake - March 2007

The Offender Accountability Act (OAA) was enacted by the Washington State Legislature in 1999. The OAA requires the Department of Corrections (DOC) to supervise felony offenders according to their risk for future offending.

In a 2003 report, the Washington State Institute for Public Policy (Institute) analyzed the validity of DOC’s risk for reoffense instrument, the Level of Service Inventory—Revised (LSI-R). As part of the analysis, the Institute suggested that the predictive accuracy of the LSI-R could be strengthened by including more static risk information about an offender’s prior record of convictions. DOC subsequently asked the Institute to develop a new static risk instrument based on offender demographics and criminal history.

This report describes our evaluation of the validity of the static risk instrument developed for DOC. In October 2008, we updated Appendix C of the report to include the intercepts or constants for the three static risk score calculations. These intercepts are added to the summed weighted item scores to produce the risk scores. These constants are +20, +15, and +10 respectively for the Felony, Property & Violent, and Violent Risk Scores.