Blog

The number of Black people with charges filed against them in Washington’s courts last year was about 2.5 times greater than their share of the state’s population – largely due to misdemeanor charges, which are considered less serious crimes. 

That’s according to a new online data dashboard released this month by the Washington State Center for Court Research. 

The dashboard also shows that the number of Native Americans with charges filed against them in Washington’s courts last year was about two times greater than their share of the state’s population. For Native women, the disparity was even larger, at around three times their share of the population. Latino people, too, are overrepresented in the legal system, at 1.5 times their share of the population. 

“It goes without saying that the United States has a long history of discrimination particularly to the Black and Indigenous communities,” said Frank Thomas, an analyst for the Washington State Minority and Justice Commission. “This is an ages-long, generations-long issue of overrepresentation in the criminal legal system.” 

Thomas said that historically, the representation of Black Americans in prisons nationwide — going as far back as 1890 —- has been around 3 times their share of the population. 

“There’s a lot of consistency — an alarming amount of consistency — of overrepresentation of Black Americans in the criminal legal system,” Thomas said. 

According to 2021 data , Washington incarcerated Indigenous people at more than six times the rate of white people and Black people at 5.7 times the rate of white people. 

The most common charge contributing to racial disparities, particularly for Latino people, is criminal traffic violations. Thomas said people often think of criminal justice in “the context of very serious harm,” but the data suggests disparities are largely driven by minor legal violations, like driving with a suspended license. 

That often affects low-income people, who are more likely to be Black, Native or Latino. Thomas gave the example of someone who can’t afford to stop driving their vehicle to work or take a day off to appear for a court date, resulting in additional criminal convictions. 

Criminal justice advocates in Washington have pushed lawmakers to pass legislation preventing police from stopping drivers over minor issues like expired tabs and broken tail lights unless there is an “immediate safety risk,” but a bill to do so failed to receive a hearing this year. 

Charges against Black individuals would have to be reduced by 64% to achieve parity across the state, according to data from the last quarter of 2023. Charges against Native people would need to fall by 55% and charges against Latino people by 37%. 

Karl Jones, the court system’s researcher who created the dashboard, said he hopes the data sparks conversations about how to reduce disparities across the state’s localities, rather than “taking disparity for granted as the natural course of things.” County-level data for the past decade is available on the dashboard , as well as data by court level. 

“What’s driving disparity in one place may not be driving disparity in another,” Jones said.

“When I say, ‘because’, you say: ‘Black people invented it,’” Renee Scott Best told a class of predominantly Black students one Monday last month. The call and response from the kids grew louder as they read a fictional story about a dystopian world without African Americans and their inventions. A folding bed, tricycle, clock, toilet, heating furnace, thermostat and air conditioner were among the innovations that no longer existed because, “Black people invented it,” the students shouted. 

“Because we were brought here as slaves, they try to make us think we’re not very smart,” Best said toward the end of the lesson. She stood beside a poster that displayed the cover of her poetry book about 50 Black inventors, Black Inventors Poetry in Motion , which inspired the day’s lesson plan. She said: “We know that’s not true, because without all of the Black inventions in and around your home, you’d be in a cabin!” 

The class Best teaches is part of an educational initiative launched in 2023 by the Association for the Study of African American Life and History ( ASALH ), a Black heritage academic club founded in 1915 by historian Carter G Woodson. Known as a “freedom school”, the class was formed in response to what critics call an assault on Black history in Florida public schools launched by Ron DeSantis . The Republican governor’s Stop Woke Act  prohibits schools from teaching about structural racism or using educational material from The 1619 Project, and he’s also banned advanced-placement African American history courses . 

While state statute still requires the teaching of African American history in Florida’s public schools, only 11 out of more than 60 districts have a Black history teaching plan advertised in curriculum guides, according to the state board African American History Taskforce. And since last year, the state’s social studies standards have included instruction that enslaved people learned skills that “could be applied for their personal benefit”. Some students and instructors say that the governor’s policies have sowed a culture of fear. 

“We have some great standards in the state of Florida, but when you add the element of fear of teaching something that is true history in our country, [people wonder] if I say this, am I in trouble?” said Edna Sherrell, lead instructor at ASALH’s Sarasota freedom school. “Will I have a problem with my parents of the wonderful students I’m teaching, because I’m saying something that’s truthful, even if it’s in a textbook?” 

The freedom school was in session over the course of two months this summer and held at St Petersburg’s Woodson African American Museum of Florida. Though the class sizes vary, 17 students between the ages of 11 and 17 were in class in early July. Each of the kids opts into the extracurricular class to supplement their school learning. According to its vision statement, the main focus of the educational initiative is to draw “from the Black activist-intellectual tradition, to build the institutional infrastructure for a progressive, redemptive program of study around the majesty and value of Black History”. 

Best, one of eight freedom school instructors with ASALH, said that she aspires to instill Black pride in her students, “to educate since they’re not doing it in the public schools … and give them the curriculum we think is important for them as African American children”. 

Freedom schools, which originally started in Mississippi in 1964, have seen a resurgence as a result of DeSantis’s policies, with schools being spread throughout the nation. Six ASALH branches and affiliated groups have launched schools in Florida, with additional schools in Dallas, Indianapolis and Urbana-Champaign. 

The curriculum varies nationwide, but largely relies on the multimedia textbook Black History 365, with some schools teaching youths and others focused on adults. Volunteer instructors including public school teachers, attorneys and Black history scholars also use primary source documents, newspaper clippings and their own books in classes. St Petersburg’s curriculum includes teachings on the origins of Africa, the enslavement of Africans, the Reconstruction period in the US following the civil war, Jim Crow policies and the resistance to white supremacy throughout history. The St Petersburg school has held a summer, winter and spring session and is in talks about developing another one in the winter of 2025. 

Freedom schools play a pivotal role in supplementing education during DeSantis’s tenure, according to Jacqueline Hubbard, president of St Petersburg ASALH branch. “Given the situation that we find ourselves in as African Americans and Black people, now is the time for us to step forward and open up schools that will teach our kids the information that they need to be successful in America,” Hubbard said. 

Florida’s policies are particularly dangerous because they serve as model legislation for other conservative states, according to Trey Walk, a democracy researcher and advocate with Human Rights Watch. “If Florida’s laws are upheld in court appeals, it can create a more conservative precedent for neighboring states,” Walk said during a seminar on Florida’s censorship policies. In June, Human Rights Watch released a report on the state of Florida’s education called: Why Do They Hate Us So Much, which found that censorship laws like the Stop Woke Act harmed underrepresented communities in Florida’s public schools. Based on more than 60 interviews with educators, students and parents in Florida, the report’s authors found that teachers were taught inaccurate information about slavery during training for a mandatory civics exam. 

W Marvin Dulaney, ASALH’s president, sees it as ironic that “we’ve come full circle where … 22 states have passed 40-plus pieces of legislation to restrict the teaching of Black history in terms of its content and ban certain books that they’re afraid of.” He added: “So we decided with ASALH that we weren’t going to sit quietly and let them continue to miseducate our children.” 

Sara King, a 16-year-old ASALH student, said the summer classes complement what her dad, who has a master’s degree in Africana studies, teaches her in the home. Some of her favorite topics she’s learned so far include details on the reality of the transatlantic slave trade, as well as the promise of 40 acres and a mule that was ultimately cancelled. “There’s so much that just isn’t included in textbooks,” King said. When teachers discuss the transatlantic slave trade in class, they sometimes don’t use the word “slavery”, she said: “They won’t blatantly say ‘the brutal history of slavery’. They’ll go over ‘our country participated in this’, and then they’ll skip over to the next part.” 

Akil King, Sara’s father, said that he had also benefited from the class, finding out that land along the southern coast that was supposed to be redistributed to formerly enslaved Black people after the civil war was referred to as “Sherman’s reserves”. “No matter how much African American history I know – having a degree in it and being a person who reads and studies – there is so much that has been withheld from us,” he said. “I always learn things that I didn’t know before.” 

The freedom school model has helped ASALH fulfill its founder’s 1915 dream of creating Black history courses throughout the nation, said Dulaney: “It’s almost like the state legislators across the country actually did us a favor. By being so racist, draconian, it gave us a vision and helped us to develop our mission a little more.” The organization is currently working on grant funding to expand their program. 

During the time of DeSantis, the freedom schools could serve as a “wake-up call” that history can be taken away, said Akil King: “Governors come and go. This could be a catalyst for African American history to always be taught.”

A federal court clarified the limits of law enforcement’s ability to hold onto private property after an arrest. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled on Aug. 9, that the Fourth Amendment’s protections against unreasonable searches and seizures apply to more than just how property is seized. The protections also apply to how long that property can be kept by law enforcement. 

The judge stated that while the police are to retain items for legitimate enforcement purposes, such as evidence, that holding onto items indefinitely without cause violates the Constitution. 

A number of circuit courts have generally ruled that once an item is seized, police can keep it without worrying about the Fourth Amendment. That allowed law enforcement to hold onto personal property for months, sometimes years, even if the person arrested never faced charges. 

This case stems from arrests made during the Black Lives Matter protest in Washington, D.C., back in August 2020. Several protesters had their phones and other items seized. Although they were released without charges, they didn’t get their property back for, in some cases, more than a year. 

Plaintiffs said they lost access to critical personal information and were forced to replace their phones. Meanwhile, their property sat in law enforcement custody. They also said that while the initial seizures were lawful, holding onto property for so long without any charges amounted to an unreasonable interference with their rights. 

With law enforcement agencies already preparing to adjust their policies in light of this ruling, the case could set the tone for how long police can hold onto personal items. Not just in Washington, but potentially across the nation.

After centuries of federal disenfranchisement of Native Americans, and years of advocacy by tribal leaders who’ve pointed out the alarmingly disproportionate crime rates affecting Indigenous communities, the Department of Justice has established a program to address systemic criminal justice issues. 

The deputy U.S. Attorney General issued a directive to U.S. attorneys in July 2022 to make meaningful change toward gaining the trust of Indigenous communities and increasing Native American public safety. Nearly a year later, the Missing or Murdered Indigenous People (MMIP) regional outreach program was created. 

The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Washington, headed by Vanessa Waldref, was one of the locations selected to benefit from this new program. In May, Bree Black Horse, a member of the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma, was hired as an assistant U.S. attorney to prosecute cases for the MMIP program. 

Black Horse will work primarily out of the Eastern District’s Yakima office and cover the Northwest region, including Washington, Oregon, Montana, Idaho, and California. 

Black Horse grew up in the Seattle area, and with her husband, an enrolled member of the Nez Perce Tribe, has lived in Central Washington and previously worked for the Yakama Nation. 

Growing up, Black Horse says she attended powwows and Indigenous art shows that reinforced her cultural heritage. As a young person, she paid attention to her elders’ discussions of the complex legal landscape affecting Indigenous communities, hearing about things such as the Boldt Decision (1975), which restored tribal fishing rights, or the Indian Removal Act (1830) and General Allotment Act (1887), which negatively impacted Native land rights by breaking up reservation land. 

“I’d often hear our tribal leaders and our tribal elders talk about the impact the law has had on tribal nations and tribal people throughout the history of this country,” Black Horse says. 

She positioned herself for a future fighting for those rights that were taken or challenged by laws, attending Seattle University School of Law and going on to work on issues including tribal sovereignty and treaty rights. 

She says encouragement from family and community members has given her strength and enabled her to take on tough cases and advocate for her community. 

With over a decade in law working on Indigenous issues, Black Horse will now be a beacon for many others in her new role as assistant U.S. attorney to the Northwest, which began on May 2. 

Waldref says she felt Black Horse was the perfect candidate for the new position focusing on Missing or Murdered Indigenous People cases due to her authentic voice and experience. Waldref says Black Horse provides a critical perspective in the Department of Justice, and will be able to help build trust with the community she is serving. 

JURISDICTION

According to Margo Hill, an Eastern Washington University professor and member of and former attorney for the Spokane Tribe, jurisdictional issues have plagued the prosecution and resolution of crimes against Indigenous communities across the nation.

Hill says the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Oliphant v. Suquamish Indian Tribe (1978) that tribes do not have authority to prosecute non-Indigenous individuals. That ruling has empowered individuals who feel they won’t face prosecution for crimes against Native Americans, she says. 

“The complex jurisdictional issues in Indian country make it so criminals think they get a pass,” Hill says. 

Determining who has jurisdiction over a case is complicated by the various types of tribal land, some of which is held in trust by the U.S. government for the use of the tribe as a whole or by allotment to individuals. Court rulings have prevented tribal governments from prosecuting crimes such as drug trafficking and crimes involving non-Natives, and major crimes are expected to be handled by federal agencies. 

The Eastern District U.S. Attorney’s Office has jurisdiction to prosecute crimes involving federally recognized tribes in our area, including the Yakama, Colville, Kalispel and Spokane, Waldref says. 

When Waldref found out about the Department of Justice starting the MMIP program, she says she knew, “We need to have one of these prosecutors based here.” 

Waldref fought to have a position in Eastern Washington because she knew tribal leaders cared about the challenges in the region and wanted to address those concerns. 

“We’ve really focused on building strong relationships with our tribal partners to invest our prosecutors in understanding how we can bring these cases effectively and build trust with individuals who are victims of crimes on tribal lands so that we can have effective prosecutions,” Waldref says. 

RISK FACTORS

There are multiple risk factors that correlate with unresolved Missing or Murdered Indigenous People cases. Black Horse says domestic or intimate partner violence is often a precursor to missing person and homicide cases.

More than 84% of American Indian/Alaska Native women have experienced violence in their lifetime, according to a 2016 study by the National Institute of Justice. 

Hill says that better data collection has led to more transparency and accountability in Washington state. Washington has the second highest number of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls cases, according to a 2018 research publication by the Urban Indian Health Institute. 

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that Indigenous women experienced the second-highest rate of homicide in 2020, and the 2016-17 “Report on Sexual Violence” found that two in five non-Hispanic American Indian/Alaska Native women had been raped in their lifetime. 

Prosecuting those types of “precursor” cases can potentially prevent a missing person or murder, Black Horse says. 

“In addition to the domestic violence cases — that will be a focus in terms of the precursor — human trafficking is another one, as well as crimes involving the physical and sexual abuse of children, and particularly here in the Northwest, narcotics trafficking has been shown to have a direct correlation to MMIP,” Black Horse says. 

A 2023 report from the Washington State Health Care Authority found that drug overdose deaths are disproportionately affecting Native Americans, at a rate nearly four times higher than among white Washingtonians. 

Hill says the fentanyl crisis is a scourge on Indigenous communities, but people like Black Horse, who understand federal Indian law, can work with state and federal authorities to grapple with these alarming issues. 

The Department of Justice’s MMIP program hired 10 attorneys to help prevent and respond to Missing or Murdered Indigenous People cases in five designated regions. The program will collaborate with tribal liaisons and coordinate with stakeholders to identify cases to prosecute. 

Black Horse says she is working to address disparities in the justice system with a focus on collaborative, victim-centered work. 

“Generations of Indigenous people have experienced disproportionate violence. Generations of Indigenous people have mourned and continue to mourn a missing or murdered loved one,” Black Horse says. “But I really believe that our future generations don’t have to experience the same disparities, the same trauma, the same heartache.”

The prison-industrial complex (PIC) is a term that draws a parallel to the “military-industrial complex” coined in the 1950s. It describes the intricate web of relationships between institutions of incarceration — such as prisons, jails, detention facilities, and psychiatric hospitals — and the businesses that profit from them. This concept is most often discussed in the context of the United States, where the expansion of the inmate population has resulted in significant economic profit and political influence for private prisons and companies that supply goods and services to government prison agencies.

Economic Interests and Political Influence

The expansion of the U.S. prison system has led to economic benefits for a wide range of businesses. These include construction companies that build prisons, firms that operate prison food services and medical facilities, and vendors of surveillance and corrections technology. Additionally, corporations that utilize cheap prison labor, correctional officer unions, private probation companies, criminal lawyers, and lobby groups are all part of this extensive network.

Advocates argue that these economic incentives have transformed incarceration into a profitable industry, contributing significantly to the phenomenon of mass incarceration. Civil rights organizations, such as the Rutherford Institute and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), assert that the prison-industrial complex prioritizes financial gain over the rehabilitation of inmates. This perspective highlights the disproportionate impact of incarceration on people of color, who are imprisoned at significantly higher rates.

Private Prisons and Broader Implications

The term “prison-industrial complex” is often used to describe the private prison industry in the U.S., which generates approximately $4 billion in profit annually. However, fewer than 10% of U.S. inmates are housed in for-profit facilities. Therefore, the term also encompasses a broader confluence of interests between the federal and state governments and private businesses that profit from increased surveillance, policing, and imprisonment.

Historical Context

Historically, American jails were largely privately managed, holding criminals awaiting trial and debtors awaiting repayment, with fees charged to local governments and creditors. The establishment of the first publicly-run prison in Pennsylvania in 1790 marked a shift away from private management, with private business involvement largely limited to contracted services like food preparation, medical care, and transportation.

An exception to this trend was the convict lease system in the American South, where private parties paid public prisons for forced prisoner labor. During the Great Depression, private corporations were prohibited from contracting cheap prison labor, which led to the establishment of Federal Prison Industries in 1930 to produce goods and services for the public sector.

War on Drugs and Contemporary PIC

The contemporary prison-industrial complex is argued to have its origins in the War on Drugs, a campaign initiated by the U.S. federal government in the early 1970s aimed at criminalizing and punishing drug trafficking and use. With tougher anti-drug legislation and harsher sentencing standards under Presidents Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan, incarceration became the standard punishment for non-violent offenses. This led to a dramatic increase in the incarcerated population, necessitating the construction of new correctional facilities and the emergence of private-sector prisons as cost-effective solutions.

The number of Americans incarcerated for drug convictions increased from about 40,000 in 1980 to approximately 450,000 in 2004. As of May 2021, the Federal Bureau of Prisons reported that 46.3% of federal inmates were incarcerated for drug convictions.

The prison-industrial complex represents a significant intersection of economic interests and political power in the United States. Understanding its historical context and contemporary implications is crucial for addressing the issues of mass incarceration and the disproportionate impact on marginalized communities. As the debate continues, the focus remains on balancing public safety, justice, and the ethical treatment of individuals within the prison system.

There’s no denying that laws and policies can make it easier or harder for released felons to find jobs. Here are the worst states for felons looking for employment.

Ranking Felon Policies

Zippia analyzed the following four factors to determine the worst states for felons seeking employment. The categories were as follows, with data used from The Sentencing Project:

• Ban-the-box law
• Background check laws
• Percent of felons who disenfranchised
• Voting restrictions

Defining Ban-the-Box

Ban-the-box is a law that makes it illegal for employers to include a question about potential employees having a criminal record on their job applications. With that under our belt, these are the worst states for job-seeking felons.

1: Mississippi

Mississippi is the worst state for felons looking for a job. The Magnolia State has no ban-the-box law. It also doesn’t have voting restrictions for those in prison and on parole and probation.

2: Georgia

The Peach State isn’t so peachy for felons seeking employment. Georgia has no ban-the-box law, and a massive 10% of disenfranchised felons. Compared to Mississippi, the silver lining for felons in Georgia is that they only have voting restrictions when on prison parole.

3: Tennessee

Nine percent of Tennessee felons aren’t able to vote, with voting restrictions on people in prison and those on parole and probation. As with the two states before it, Tennessee offers no exceptions for background checks on felons.

4: Alabama

Alabama is a troubling state for felons trying to find work, for it doesn’t have ban-the-box laws or background check exclusions. It’s also one of only two states in the U.S. to deny felons from voting post-sentence.

5: Florida

The Sunshine State has made small strides for felons looking for employment. But it still ranks in the top five worst states for felons. Florida has no ban-the-box law, and a whopping 8% of disenfranchised felons.

6: Virginia

Like the states before it, Virginia’s employees are welcome to check a prospective employee’s criminal record without exceptions, making it challenging for felons to dip their toes into the working world. Virginia also places voting restrictions on felons in prison and on parole and probation.

7: Kentucky

There isn’t a ban-the-box law in Kentucky, meaning felons must indicate they’ve been convicted of a felony if asked on a job application. The Bluegrass State also has a rate of 6% of disenfranchised felons.

8: Arizona

Arizona is the first state with a single-hand percentage of disenfranchised felons (5%) on this list. But it’s still one of the worst states for felons seeking work because of its ban-the-box law and voting restrictions on people post-sentence.

9: Arkansas

Arkansas doesn’t have any background exclusions for felons, nor does it have a ban-the-box law. It also has strong voting restrictions against felons, with those in prison, on parole, and on probation unable to vote.

10: Texas

Texas is the tenth-worst state for felons looking for employment. Depending on one’s stance, that may be a good or bad ranking. Regardless, the Lone Star State joins the other nine states on this list with no ban-the-box law or background check exclusions for felons.

What’s Up With Voting?

Zippia chose to include voting rights in its rankings because they believe voting empowers workers. They also argue that voting can serve as “a proxy for attitudes toward felons.”

Best State for Felons

Vermont is the best state for felons looking for employment. The Green Mountain State has no voting restrictions or disenfranchised felons. It also has a ban-the-box law in place.

Runners Up

Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and New Jersey are the second to fourth-best states for job-seeking felons, respectively. Although these states join Vermont in having no background check exceptions, they all have ban-the-box laws and low rates of disenfranchisement.

States With Background Check Exceptions

Only seven states have background exceptions. Most of these exceptions depend on how much money a felon would make. For example, a felon making $20,000 or less per year in New Mexico can receive a background check exception, whereas felons in Colorado can make up to $75,000 per year with a background check exception.

A Sentence After the Sentence

Zippia’s rankings show that not all states make it easy for felons to transition back into the real world. Being denied job opportunities can feel like a sentence outside of the confinements of prison.

Not Uncommon

Approximately 20 million Americans have been charged with a felony at some point in their lives. While hiring former felons can come with risks for employers, the alternative would be to have 20 million felons on the street without employment.

The Struggle Is Real

According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, 3.7% of the general public suffered from unemployment in 2022 compared to around 60% of previously incarcerated people.

A federal judge considered on Friday harsh sanctions against the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office in Arizona if it doesn’t soon resolve a backlog of misconduct complaints stemming from the days of former Sheriff Joe Arpaio. 

A failure to complete investigations for more than 1,400 complaints has kept alive a class action filed nearly two decades ago over racist policies of “immigration sweeps” in which Latinos were disproportionately detained on suspicions of non-citizenship. 

While the policies were deemed unconstitutional in 2011, Arpaio — who billed himself as “America’s toughest sheriff” — was found in criminal contempt in 2017 for continuing to order his deputies to enforce them. 

Seven years and two sheriffs later, the parties are still seeking a solution to catch up on the aging investigations. The American Civil Liberties Union, representing the plaintiff class, and the sheriff’s office, joined by the U.S. Department of Justice, offered two potential fixes earlier this month, but U.S. District Judge G. Murray Snow has other ideas. 

“After reading the report, I believe the answer is something provided by none of the parties,” he said in a federal courthouse in Phoenix Friday afternoon.

Rather than mandating the hiring of 10 additional investigators and doubling average monthly investigation closure rate, as requested by both sides, Snow said he will mandate specific numbers by which the defendants must reduce the backlog, with the number increasing on a monthly basis until the number of cases reaches zero. That way, Snow said, the decision to hire new investigators can be made by necessity rather than a court order.

“I’m not inclined to order 10 new staff when what is actually needed might be 40 more staff,” he said. 

When asked if the parties can review a draft of his proposed order, Snow thrust a stapled-stack of papers forward before scurrying into the back room to print out more copies for the rest of the attorneys.

“I’ve always wanted to be a secretary,” the George W. Bush appointee joked between trips to the printer. 

The parties have one week to review the draft and suggest changes before Snow finalizes the order. 

Both sides agree that the backlog can be reasonably eliminated by March 31, 2026. To do that, sheriff’s office attorney Mary O’Grady said the office will have to remove an average of 63 cases per month from the backlog, all while ensuring that new cases don’t get added to it. 

“It’s not a linear path to get to our goal,” she told Snow. She said it may take a few months or a year to get the monthly average up to 63, depending on how soon and how many investigators they can hire. 

Snow suggested that he require a smaller number of cases be removed from the backlog starting in September. He offered 35 as an example. He said that number will be ramped up each month until a monthly average of 63 completed cases is achieved. 

To ensure compliance, at the end of each yearly quarter, for each month in which the defendants don’t reach their goal, they’ll be required to deposit two times the annual salary for an investigator — $191,000 — into a fund that can only be used to hire more investigators. For example, on December 31, if the sheriff’s office has reduced the backlog by the required amount in October, but failed to do so in both November and December, it will have to put four times the annual investigator salary into the fund.  

“You’re going to have to reduce the backlog by a specific number, or you’ll have the money to hire additional staffing,” Snow said. 

U.S. Attorney Suraj Kumar said that he doesn’t think sanctions are necessary to achieve a goal the office is already working hard at. 

“You can call them sanctions if you want,” Snow replied. “I’ll just call it money that’s clearly required to complete the backlog, based on your failure to resolve it in a way that’s reasonable.”

In a previous order, Snow mandated that investigations are completed within an 85-day window. But defendants asked that the window be expanded back to the state-mandated 180 days, which would mean fewer cases are backlogged, as they’d have more time to be investigated. 

ACLU attorney Sebrina Shaw said expanding the investigatory window would only “move a goalpost in order to have a cosmetic change,” and not actually increase the rate at which investigations are completed, which is ultimately what the plaintiff class wants. 

Snow, persuaded by O’Grady’s suggestion that expanding the window would reduce the backlog by 23 cases per month, said he is inclined to grant the defendants’ request. 

Months after a federal court held that a 2021 state law regulating how teachers address race, gender, and other topics was unconstitutional , New Hampshire’s Attorney General’s Office has filed an appeal. 

In a filing to the First Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston announced Wednesday, the office argued that the U.S. District Court of New Hampshire was wrong to rule that the state law is unconstitutionally vague. 

“The court applied the vagueness doctrine in a way that improperly second guesses the legitimate policy choices made by the State Legislature in setting curriculum within New Hampshire’s public schools,” read a press release by the Department of Justice Wednesday. 

The case centers around a law, known to opponents as the “divisive concepts” or “banned concepts” law, that restricts teachers and other public employees from certain teaching topics and lays out professional consequences – including lawsuits and the potential loss of their teaching credentials – if they are found to have violated the law. 

Under the law, teachers and government employees are not allowed to advocate that people of one race, gender, or other characteristic are inherently superior to or advantaged over others; that people of one characteristic are inherently oppressive toward others; that an individual should be discriminated against or receive adverse treatment for any characteristic; and that people “cannot and should not attempt to treat others without regard to” their characteristics. The law, labeled the Right to Freedom from Discrimination in Public Workplaces and Education, allows parents to file lawsuits against school districts if they believe teachers are violating the law, and allows them to file complaints with the New Hampshire Commission for Human Rights. 

If a teacher is found by a court or the commission to have violated the law, the State Board of Education can take disciplinary action and potentially rescind their teachers license. 

So far since the law’s passage as part of the 2021 budget, only one complaint has been brought forward, according to the Attorney General’s Office. But teachers unions and the American Civil Liberties Union say that because the prohibitions in the law are not clear, and because the professional consequences are so severe, the law has had a chilling effect on teachers who feel they cannot have nuanced discussions on race or gender. 

After two teachers’ unions, the American Federation of Teachers of New Hampshire and National Education Association of New Hampshire, sued the state in conjunction with the ACLU of New Hampshire and GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders, Judge Paul Barbadoro ruled in May that the law violated teachers’ 14th Amendment rights because it was unconstitutionally vague. That vagueness applied to both the way in which teachers might interpret the law and the way in which state officials might choose to punish teachers under the law, he ruled. 

“… Because the Amendments fail to establish ‘minimal guidelines to govern [their] enforcement,’ officials are free to ‘pursue their personal predilections’ when applying the law,” Barbadoro wrote. 

Barbadoro’s ruling struck down the law; the state is now seeking to restore it through the appeal. 

“Today’s decision to appeal this misguided ruling underscores our commitment to upholding the right of duly elected legislators to enact carefully considered policy and clarity in our state laws,” Attorney General John Formella said in a statement Wednesday.

“… This case is not just about legal technicalities; it’s about safeguarding the integrity of our legislative process and ensuring clarity and stability for our educators, students, and communities across New Hampshire.” 

Oral arguments in the appeal in Boston are “expected to occur in the coming months,” the press release continued.

Spokane Mayor Lisa Brown told her fellow officials they could pull the city out of its deficit; all it would take is extensive personnel and funding cuts, which could diminish public safety. 

Brown has alluded to this option several times already: first when proposing her Community Safety Levy and then when announcing a two-book outlook for next year. The mayor confirmed many people’s suspicions during Thursday’s budget meeting but noted that the cuts aren’t set in stone. 

The effort is a part of balancing Spokane’s structural deficit, which has grown to around $50 million since 2019, according to Brown’s prior statements . However, Matt Boston, the city’s chief financial officer, referred to it as a “$25 million structural gap” yesterday, ignoring the roughly $25 million in depleted reserves that the city spent in addition to the general fund deficit. 

“The structural gap projections are a moving target,” Boston said. “Obviously with revenue fluctuating from month to month, year to year, we’re keeping a pretty honed-in focus on our revenue numbers, sales tax being the most fluctuating of all the ones we really review.” 

Spokane’s structural gap, or deficit, may decrease over the next year if things go according to plan, though it won’t disappear altogether. Instead, Boston said the city anticipates ending 2025 with a general fund deficit of $14 million. That amount would increase again to $19 million by the end of 2026, according to Boston’s presentation on Thursday. 

Still, the city expects its revenues to increase by approximately 3% over the biennium, which is typical outside of shifts due to the pandemic and various lockdowns. 

Current cost-saving measures include mandatory furlough days for Brown’s cabinet, shifting contracts and training to a more cost-effective format, delaying the 2024 Fire Academy and propping up a “Salary Savings Plan” for the Spokane Police Department, which incentivizes officers to retire despite SPD experiencing issues with understaffing. 

“The expenditure reductions taken by the administration are continuous, and are included, and does not include any Community Safety Sales Tax,” Boston said. 

Brown recently proposed a new sales tax after pulling her Community Safety Levy from the ballot shortly after the city council approved it. The measure could bring in about $7.7 million annually with 15% going to the county, though the city could’ve received around that same amount if voters had passed another measure last November. 

Now, Brown wants to plug a fraction of the deficit with her new tax measure while mitigating the extent of personnel cuts. Meanwhile, the county is attempting to renew its Juvenile Detention Facility and Jails Tax. If the city succeeds and the county fails, Sheriff John Nowels said it could make Spokane even more dangerous . 

Around 73% of the general fund expenditures are on community safety, with the vast majority going to law enforcement, fire and emergency medical services, or EMS. This means that if the city intends to close the structural gap, many of the cuts could come from those departments. 

When Brown proposed her levy in April, she said that if it wasn’t passed, around 200 people could lose their jobs, which would significantly impact public safety. Then again, when announcing her book-one budget outlook, she said it would include a 10% citywide cut, which would undoubtedly include personnel. 

“I don’t want to sugarcoat it, as I’m starting to review these 10% reductions, they aren’t pretty,” Brown said. “If we did the 10% across the board, we would solve the structural deficit … However, I don’t see a way to do that without employing reductions or service-level reductions.” 

According to data from Thursday’s presentation, SPD is facing the most significant funding cut at $9.38 million, with Fire/EMS being the second largest at $4.75 million. Then, Parks & Recreation at about a $950,000 cut, Legal at $567,000, Municipal Court at $528,000, Public Defenders at $366,000 and Community Justice Services at $364,000. 

The library system is facing a larger cut than parts of the court system, at about $487,000; still, Spokane’s capacity to prosecute offenders is already greatly diminished, on top of a lack of capacity in the jails and juvenile detention facilities. 

Thursday’s presentation also included several other cuts outside of police, fire and court services, adding another $2.46 million in cuts to the budget. This is on top of the $17.39 million in cuts between the justice system, police, fire, libraries and parks and recreation. 

“I just wanted to make it clear to everyone that we’ve asked every department to identify the 10% reduction; we haven’t taken all those reductions yet,” Brown said. “This 10% reduction exercise identifies what would happen if we took 10% equally from each department; that’s not necessarily the budgeting practice that we would actually incorporate into our budget proposal.” 

“But it gives us options,” she continued; however, Brown also said that she asked a few departments not to participate in the 10% reductions. 

The city officials will decide which cuts to adopt and other cost-saving measures in the coming weeks and months as they prepare for the forthcoming biennial budget.