FINAL BILL REPORT

                 SHB 1781

                         C 223 L 98

                     Synopsis as Enacted

Brief Description:  Expanding the supervision management and recidivist tracking program.

Sponsors:  By House Committee on Appropriations (originally sponsored by  Representatives Lambert, Ballasiotes, Clements, McMorris, Talcott, Costa, Backlund, Cooke, Huff, Delvin and Thompson).

House Committee on Criminal Justice & Corrections

House Committee on Appropriations

Senate Committee on Human Services & Corrections

Background:  The supervision management and recidivist tracking program (SMART) is a community monitoring program for released offenders.

Prior to an offender's release, the Department of Corrections (DOC) identifies where the offender plans to reside and then notifies the local law enforcement agency within that community.  The DOC provides the local law enforcement agency with pertinent background information on the offender's criminal history, sentence, and community placement requirements.  Once the offender is released, local law enforcement officers begin to make regular visits to the offender in addition to the regular visits he or she may receive from his or her assigned community corrections officer.  This allows local officers to get to know the offenders through face-to-face contact and to operate as a 24-hour eye for community corrections officers.  Each time a contact, whether suspicious or routine,  is made between the local law enforcement officer and the offender, the local police department informs the DOC, in writing, regarding the status of the released offender.

The SMART program serves as a communication link between the DOC, the local community corrections offices, and the participating local law enforcement agencies.  Although cities such as Redmond, Aberdeen, Seattle, and Tacoma have similar programs with the same concept, the programs are not identical and are operated differently in each city.

The homicide investigative tracking system (HITS) is operated by the Attorney General's Office and is used to track the criminal histories of all offenders who have committed a homicide.

Summary: A new branch, called the supervision management and recidivist tracking (SMART) program, is created within the state's homicide investigative tracking system (HITS).   The HITS and SMART systems are tools that may be used for the sole purpose of administrating criminal justice.  These systems may not be used for any other purpose.

The Attorney General (AG) is authorized to contract with the Department of Corrections (DOC), and any other state, local or private agency interested in implementing or providing training for a SMART program.  All programs must include a computer linkage between the AG's main data base for HITS, the DOC, and each local law enforcement department participating in the program.

Local law enforcement agencies electronically transfer each contact report on offenders who are under the DOC supervision directly into the HITS computer system data base.  The HITS program then electronically sends the reports to the DOC and the corrections officer who is responsible for supervising the offender.

All dormant information in the SMART system is required to be automatically archived after seven years.  The DOC must notify the AG when each person is no longer under its supervision.  The term "dormant" means there have been no inquiries by the DOC or law enforcement with regard to an active supervision case or an active criminal investigation in the past seven years.  The term "archived" means information which is not in the active data base and can only be retrieved for use in an active criminal investigation.

Votes on Final Passage:

House930

Senate481(Senate amended)

House950(House concurred)

Effective:June 11, 1998