SEATTLE – Over the last decade, Washington state, Seattle, and King County saw the highest increase in chronic homelessness and drug overdose deaths in the country. One factor in this growth is that a program to reduce arrests, prosecutions and incarceration for individuals involved in drug-related crimes was built on inaccurate claims and flawed research. WPC analysis found that claims about research used to justify the creation and strategy of Seattle’s Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion (LEAD) program, were consistently inaccurate.
In a new report, Eric Zimmerman, Washington Policy Center’s Director of Public Safety Solutions, reveals 11 years of erroneous LEAD claims on reduced recidivism and arrest rates, and increased employment. Supporters of LEAD claim the program reduced recidivism by 58% and reduced felony charges by 39% and increased odds of being employed by 46%. The underlying research contradicts those claims.
“I knew a serious error had been made when I saw the slides of LEAD’s recent Seattle City Council presentation,” explained WPC’s Director of Public Safety Solutions, Eric Zimmerman. “When we work with vulnerable populations, we rarely see that many people change so much or that quickly.”
The implications stemming from the errors go far beyond Seattle. Claims of LEAD’s effectiveness have been used to promote LEAD across the nation, in tribal governments and even in the United Kingdom. Dozens of state and local governments have implemented the program. As of today, these claims are still cited on LEAD websites.
“Seattle’s real-world experience does not match the promises of LEAD advocates,” remarked Todd Myers, Vice President for Research. “Eric asked questions about claims others took for granted. Not only does this have big funding implications, but real lives are at stake and depend on us getting this right.”
Other erroneous descriptions of LEAD’s research include systematic overstating of small differences, conflating mathematical terms, and absent acknowledgement of the study’s significant design limitations and selection bias. For example, while LEAD promoters have regularly claimed the odds of “being on the employment continuum increased 46 percent”, according to LEAD’s research an estimated 3 of 163 unemployed participants gained employment and 91% of participants on average remained unemployed over an 18-month follow-up. Because the absolute change in real employment was very small and statistically insignificant, references to an odds or likelihood change on an “employment continuum” are materially misleading.
“If cities like Seattle who adopted LEAD intend to help people, they need to base policy on facts. What they’ve been told about LEAD is simply untrue,” said Zimmerman. “Where government struggles to check its work, we help everyone by making sure the checking gets done.”
For details on erroneous claims promoting LEAD, see the full report here.
