Steve Aos - January 2002

In 1999, the Legislature passed the Offender Accountability Act (OAA). Fundamentally, the OAA concerns economics; that is, it affects how the Washington Department of Corrections (DOC) spends its budget. It directs DOC to focus more resources on higher-risk offenders and - because state agency budgets must balance - to spend fewer dollars on lower-risk offenders. The Institute was directed by the Legislature to “conduct a study of the effect of the use of community custody…on recidivism and other outcomes.” In this report, we evaluate the implementation of one cornerstone of the OAA: the formal process DOC is using to assess the risk levels of offenders - DOC’s “Risk Management Identification” (RMI) system. This report tests the degree to which the RMI system measures what the Legislature intended. We analyzed the first substantial group of offenders classified by DOC. We found that DOC’s RMI system does a reasonable job of classifying offenders pursuant to the policy directives of the OAA.

Steve Aos - January 2003

In 1999, the Washington Legislature passed, and Governor Locke signed into law, the Offender Accountability Act (OAA). The Act primarily affects how the Department of Corrections (DOC) provides community supervision to adults convicted of felony crimes. The OAA directs DOC to classify all felony offenders according to the risk they pose to re-offending in the future and the amount of harm they have caused society in the past. The OAA then directs DOC to allocate more of its community-based resources to the higher-risk offenders. The primary goal is to reduce the subsequent criminal behavior of these offenders when they are back in the community. In this report, we present the first information on how well DOC’s risk assessment tool—the Level of Service Inventory-Revised (LSI-R)—predicts actual recidivism. We also describe some of the technical statistical steps we are taking to ensure that the OAA’s outcomes can be reliably evaluated.

Marna Miller - May 2004

When children are removed from home due to child abuse or neglect or because of the child’s behavior, the Washington State Department of Social and Health Services (DSHS) may file a dependency case in the court. Or, in cases where parents agree to the placement, services may be provided to the family to help resolve their problems without going to court. In both instances, when it is possible to do so safely, the goal of DSHS is to reunify the family.

Between 1995 and 2002, the annual number of reunifications dropped by 31 percent. The Washington State Legislature directed the Institute to identify factors that reduce family reunifications in Washington. To do this, we merged administrative records from DSHS with court records of dependencies for the same children. We found that most of the reduction in reunifications has occurred because the number of out-of-home placements has dropped, not because of any significant change in rate of reunification.

Elizabeth Drake, Steve Aos, Robert Barnoski - January 2010

The 1999 Offender Accountability Act (OAA) directs the Department of Corrections (DOC) to perform a formal assessment of each offender’s risk for recidivism and then to allocate agency resources accordingly. The law also requires the Institute to evaluate the OAA and provide results by 2010.

This report presents our findings on whether the OAA has had an effect on recidivism. On average, offenders today have a greater risk for recidivism than historically; the general rise in recidivism over the last 20 years is largely explained by the increased underlying risk of DOC’s offender population. Since the OAA was implemented, however, something favorable has happened to cause recidivism rates to be lower than expected. Unfortunately, our statistical analysis does not allow us to identify whether this beneficial change can be attributed specifically to the OAA or other policies, or other unknown factors that occurred during the same time period. Regardless, the good news from our evaluation is that, after at least a decade of increasing recidivism, Washington is now beginning to observe improvements in adult felony recidivism.

Julia Cramer, John Hansen, Kristofer Bitney - December 2018

The 2017 Washington State Legislature directed WSIPP to study several aspects of National Board Certification. Board Certification is a voluntary and nationally recognized teaching credential. Some states provide additional benefits and financial incentives to Board-certified educators. In Washington, Board-certified teachers are eligible for an incentive of about $5,000 per year. Board-certified teachers working in high-poverty schools can receive an additional $5,000 per year through the state’s Challenging Schools Bonus (CSB) program. This report describes findings from a 50-state review of incentive programs similar to Washington’s CSB program. We also describe meta-analytic findings of the effect of exposure to a National Board-certified teacher on student outcomes, results from an analysis on retention among Board-certified teachers in Washington, as well as the effect of the creation of the CSB program on Board-certified teachers working in high-poverty schools.

Marna Miller - November 2012

Washington’s Family Caregiver Support Program (FCSP) provides a comprehensive array of information, resources and services to unpaid family caregivers caring for adults with functional disabilities. One objective of this program is to delay or avoid placement of the care recipient in long-term care. To expand the program to serve more caregivers, the 2011 Legislature increased funding for the FCSP by $3.45 million for fiscal year 2012. The additional funding was based on assumed savings associated with delayed or avoided placements into more costly Medicaid-paid long-term care (LTC). The legislature also directed the Institute to assess whether the expansion of this program delayed or reduced entry of care recipients into LTC and thereby reduced LTC costs.

The short legislative timeline for this study precluded a comprehensive evaluation. Nonetheless, based on the limited data available, we report two preliminary results. First, we observed a significant delay in the use of LTC by those served during the expansion. Second, we estimate that the maximum savings possible from the expansion would have been $1.67 million in the first year. Since $3.45 million was budgeted for the FCSP expansion, it appears unlikely that the expansion would have been cost neutral, at least in the first year, as assumed in the budget.

We recommend that a longer term evaluation of the expansion be conducted to determine if benefits match cost over an extended period.

Cory Briar, Colin Gibson, Chasya Hoagland - December 2022

The 2021 Washington State Legislature directed WSIPP to study the economic and environmental impacts of a Buy American Steel policy in the state. Such a policy would require that steel used in the fulfillment of Washington State government contracts be partially or exclusively sourced from within the US. This report describes the findings from two economic analyses: a benefit-cost analysis (BCA) and an economic impacts analysis (EIA).

The BCA finds that the increase in cost to taxpayers to carry out projects under a domestic steel requirement would likely exceed new income to workers in the Washington steel industry, but net changes to the state economy would be small. The EIA finds that the requirement would support jobs in the steel industry, but the increased cost to taxpayers would lead to job losses in other sectors. Like the BCA, the net changes predicted by the EIA are small, ranging from a loss of 12 to a gain of 13 jobs per year statewide under a domestic steel requirement.

We also conduct an analysis of how the policy would impact global emissions of greenhouse gases. While the net change in emissions is ambiguous, this analysis suggests that the change in emissions could only range from a decrease of 1.2% to an increase of 1.6% of steel production-generated emissions in Washington.

Corey Whichard, Katelyn Kelley - June 2023

In May 2021, the Washington Legislature directed WSIPP to conduct a study of Washington State Patrol’s (WSP) Operation Net Nanny (“Net Nanny”). Net Nanny is a type of undercover law enforcement activity known as an “internet sting operation.” WSP detectives designed Net Nanny to arrest adults who use the internet to solicit sexual activity with minors.

The legislative assignment outlined two objectives for WSIPP’s study. First, the study must describe the current research on internet sting operations. Second, the study must include an analysis that compares the characteristics of individuals convicted through Net Nanny with individuals convicted of child sex offenses through other avenues.

To address the first objective, we reviewed the academic literature on internet sting operations. However, we found limited research on this topic. It is unclear whether these operations are effective at deterring or reducing crime.

To address the second objective, we compiled administrative data on all adults in Washington State who were convicted of child sex crimes since Net Nanny has been active. We used this data to compare two groups: (1) individuals arrested via Net Nanny; and (2) individuals who were arrested through traditional police tactics. We found that individuals in both groups exhibit similar demographic characteristics and criminal history. On average, across these specific measures, individuals convicted through Net Nanny resemble people convicted of completed sexual crimes against minors.

Shannon Matson - December 2002

In 2001, the Legislature adopted the recommendations of the Professional Educator Standards Board (PESB) and created three alternative routes to certification for prospective teachers in Washington. The Washington State Institute for Public Policy (Institute) was directed by the 2001 Legislature to evaluate three pilot certification programs selected by the PESB. The Institute also received funding from the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction to incorporate four federally funded "Transitions to Teaching" programs in this same evaluation. This interim report addresses the following research questions: 1) What are alternative routes to teacher certification? 2) What is the status of Washington's alternative route partnerships? 3) Who are Washington's alternative route interns?

Robert Barnoski - March 2004

The 1997 Washington State Legislature enacted the Community Juvenile Accountability Act (CJAA) to test the use of “research-based” programs to reduce juvenile offender recidivism. The act required the use of a risk assessment to assign youth to these programs. The Washington Association of Juvenile Court Administrators worked with the Washington State Institute for Public Policy (Institute) to develop the Washington State Juvenile Court Assessment (WSJCA). The assessment was implemented in 1999 as a two-stage process. The first stage is a pre-screen assessment completed for all youth placed on probation. The second stage, a full assessment, is required for youth assessed as moderate or high risk on the pre-screen. This report examines the validity of the pre-screen and full assessment.