Noting the high number of public safety-related bills adopted by the Seattle City Council in 2024, today Council President Sara Nelson (Position 9) welcomed incoming interim Chief of Police Shon Barnes to Seattle and urged a redoubling of city efforts on Seattle’s ongoing public safety challenges in the new year.

In its first year, the new City Council adopted 14 pieces of public safety-related legislation, a record number since 2015. Most were approved first by the Public Safety Committee, chaired by Councilmember Bob Kettle (District 7). In aggregate, they demonstrate Council’s close attention to a wide range of public safety challenges across the city.

“It’s not the number of bills adopted that matters but rather what that number represents. This Council is leading on what the voters elected us to do: reduce crime and improve public safety in a comprehensive and compassionate manner,” said Council President Nelson. “We have a lot on our plate this year with the Comprehensive Plan update and the District 2 vacancy to fill but we cannot lose momentum on public safety because there’s so much more work to be done. As President, I welcome interim Chief Barnes and convey Council’s readiness to partner with him and the Mayor’s Office on achieving measurable public safety improvements for our constituents.”

“This new Council’s public safety work in 2024 is crucial to addressing the challenges we’re facing in our city,” said Councilmember Kettle. “Our new approach reset the environment and the many public safety pieces of legislation this past year were guided by our Strategic Framework Plan and will be upon moving forward in 2025.” 

Background

Three notably consequential bills adopted last year address the ongoing Seattle Police Department staffing shortage – the biggest barrier to reducing crime – by finally approving a contract with the Seattle Police Officers Guild (CB 120783), improving officer hiring processes (CB 120766), and making hiring incentives permanent while increasing the bonus for lateral hires (CB 120862). As a result, applications to SPD rose sharply by the third quarter of 2024 and we saw the first net positive increase in the number of deployable officers since 2020, reversing the trend of more officer separations from the force than hires.

Also last year, Council established Stay Out of Drug Area (“SODA”) and Stay Out of Area of Prostitution (“SOAP”) zones to disrupt and deter drug-related crime and sex trafficking respectively by creating exclusion zones in narrowly defined geographic hotspots for such activity. This is consistent with the recommendation from the City Auditor to take a place-based approach to crime hotspots to best target limited police and human service resources. Authority now rests with Municipal Court judges and officers to implement the legislation.

A complete list of legislation is attached. Not included is Council’s work to expand social services for people struggling with mental illness and substance use disorder, frequent drivers of public safety issues.

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