Jail alternative program aims to foster a safer community and reduce incarceration by meeting individual needs and addressing root causes of crime.
Updated Aug. 8, 2025
Bellingham local Dustin Stephens says Whatcom County’s LEAD program saved his life.
“My addiction took me to a hopeless place where I was resigned to dying from my addiction,” Stevens said during a recent panel discussion on substance abuse recovery. “The fact that some people never gave up on me — my doctors, the LEAD program — I owe my life to.”
Sometimes it was a visit while Stevens was living in homeless encampments. Other times it was a ride or a coat or lunch.
“They never gave up on me even when I was at my worst,” he said, “The fact that they didn’t give up on me made me believe that I didn’t have to give up on myself.”
Since it launched about five years ago, the county’s LEAD program has provided a justice system alternative to hundreds of individuals.
But stakeholders say the program has room to grow if it wants to address lingering gaps.
“I think it’s being run pretty well,” Whatcom County Public Defender’s Office Director Starck Follis said. “The only thing I would say is I think it could do more — and it could certainly do more if we had more funding and more housing.”
How LEAD works
The county’s program is part of a national network of over 35 communities using the LEAD model, which aims to target the root causes of crime by addressing individuals’ unmet needs.
Individuals get intensive case management to address both
immediate needs — clean clothes, a place to sleep, a ride
to an appointment — as well as deeper issues and root causes
such as housing or mental health or substance abuse issues.
LEAD was originally started in Seattle as a pre-arrest diversion, meaning that the program was offered as an alternative to jail to individuals at the time of arrest for lower-level crimes like drug possession, prostitution or property damage. The LEAD acronym officially stands for “Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion,” but Whatcom County’s program is also known as “Let Everyone Advance with Dignity.” [Ed.: Whatcom’s LEAD program has adopted both versions.]
That wasn’t the only change Whatcom County made. Instead of following the existing LEAD structure, the county opted instead for a referral-based program, meaning law enforcement, prosecutors and other community service partners identify individuals who they believe will be a good fit for the program. Generally, those referrals are for individuals who frequently interact with police and who have low-level criminal offenses stemming from mental and behavioral health issues, substance use, homelessness and extreme poverty.
A work group of different stakeholders meets to review the referrals and make sure they meet the program’s eligibility criteria. The county’s program, unlike Seattle’s, does not include “warm handoffs,” or when a law enforcement officer directly transfers an individual to the care of a LEAD service provider.
Once accepted into the program, individuals get intensive case management to address both their immediate needs — like clean clothes, a place to sleep or a ride to an appointment — as well as deeper issues and their root causes — such as finding stable housing or addressing mental health or substance abuse issues.
Participants are in the program anywhere from several months to multiple years depending on their individual needs, risk factors and goals, said Malora Christensen, response systems division manager for Whatcom Health and Community Services, which runs the program.
“When you show up for people in a real, authentic way and don’t ignore their basic needs and treat them with dignity and respect — I feel like usually people are pretty excited about that,” she said. “It makes all the difference.”
The program reported an 81% reduction in jail bookings for LEAD participants in 2023, according to health department spokesperson Marie Junek. That number was calculated by comparing the number of participants’ bookings 12 months before they enter LEAD and 12 months after they exit the program. In 2023, 75 individuals exited the program. The reduction does not refer to an overall reduction in jail bookings for individuals outside of the program.
Law enforcement officials say the program has been successful so far.
The LEAD program reported an 81% reduction
in jail bookings for participants in 2023.
“We’ve been happy with the LEAD program,” said Whatcom County Chief Deputy Jason Gum. “It is taking a lot of people that were in continuous contact with law enforcement and it has moved that law enforcement contact to other agencies that are better trained and able to provide them services.”
Lt. Claudia Murphy with Bellingham police agreed.
“What they do on the other end is phenomenal,” she said. “We in law enforcement are really glad that we have that here, even though it’s a slightly different take on what LEAD is in other communities.”
But Follis said that the change to a referral-based program is a key difference.
“It’s ‘Let Everyone Advance with Dignity,’ which I’m not sure exactly what that means,” he said during a panel discussion hosted by Bellingham City Club in May. “It really does not necessarily have anything to do with an arrest or a crime being committed, so it is not at all a diversion program.”
Should the program be expanded?
Whether to include pre-arrest diversions in the program has been a topic of discussion since before the LEAD program was launched in 2020.
At the time, however, COVID-era booking restrictions on the jails meant many individuals weren’t being booked for low-level crimes anyway. That paired with the newness of the program in the community pushed leaders to opt for the current referral method instead, said Christensen.
“Launching in that environment, we didn’t really know what to expect,” she said.
Five years later, implementing pre-arrest diversions is something the program is still discussing. But it’s not necessarily feasible with current funding — which comes entirely from the state — and staffing, Christensen said.
The program, which serves about 140 individuals at a time, would likely need to add two to three more positions and expand its hours to Saturday and Sunday if it wanted to expand to pre-arrest diversion or expand the number of program participants.
“We’re not in a place of expansion right now, we’re just really trying to maintain what we have,” Christensen said, adding that the program had to open a waitlist for the first time earlier this year. “We have a hard time keeping up with the referrals.”
Despite those barriers, those in law enforcement and the legal system voiced support for expanding the program.
‘LEAD, as it exists … mostly reaches street-type
folk within the city limits of Bellingham. That’s not
terribly … impactful to the county courts.’
Follis, for example, said in an interview that the program hasn’t really impacted his office because it doesn’t necessarily reach the type of individuals with cases in county court.
“LEAD, as it exists in Whatcom County right now, mostly reaches street-type folk within the city limits of Bellingham. That’s not terribly, in my opinion, impactful to the county courts,” he said. “We still see the same cases; we see the same crimes; we see, frankly, the same people that come into the office all the time because LEAD isn’t necessarily reaching the people that are actively committing crimes in the community. It’s more of a preventative program.”
Murphy said while Bellingham officers would likely be in favor of expanding to pre-arrest diversions, the question of whether to do so isn’t dependent on her department
“It’s not about us; it’s about whether LEAD has the capacity to do that, and that’s not ours to answer,” she said.
Gum said while he supports expanding the program in the future, there would be a few barriers to doing so currently from the sheriff office’s perspective: namely staffing and the large geographical area, over 2,400 square miles, his deputies cover.
Due to staffing shortages, the sheriff’s office is often working with the minimum number of deputies allowed on any given shift, he said. That means deputies might not always have the time to hand off individuals in custody to LEAD program staff, although Gum said they can sometimes drive individuals to local resource centers in Bellingham.
“It sounds like it’s the right thing to do, to wait to get them services, but that’s another 30–40 minutes that we’re not attending to calls for service,” Gum said. “That’s the balance of how long can we wait in the field.”
It’ll be a question then of both staffing for the sheriff’s office and whether LEAD will have the transportation and staffing capacity to meet deputies in the field in a timely manner.
Lingering gaps
Beyond expanding to pre-arrest diversion, stakeholders say there are lingering gaps in the broader landscape of services that can make it difficult for those LEAD aims to help to fully get on their feet.
‘Without (additional housing), we are going to continue
to see folks struggle, even with diversion programs.’
“It’s not a bad program at all. I think it could be enhanced,” said Irene Morgan, founder of Restorative CommUnity Coalition. “I know that there are good programs, but I also see the frustration of the people that are in the programs that know the shortcomings of them.”
Morgan would like to see a better continuation of services as individuals move from one step to another. For instance, she said temporary housing programs could offer skills-based classes to residents to help them integrate into society or stakeholders could implement restorative justice.
Christensen agreed that there are gaps in the community’s continuum of care, including a shortage of mental health providers and a lack of available housing, ranging from shelter beds and transitional housing to low-income units.
“Without that (additional housing), we are going to continue to see folks struggle, even with diversion programs,” Christensen said. “I think we’re doing a good job, but people need to sleep, people need to feel safe and people need to have their basic needs met daily — and we just aren’t quite there as a community. ”
Gum agreed: “On the back end, there’s a lot of effort, a lot of willingness to work with LEAD and expand LEAD, but the end game is the services that are available for the people in need. Where are they going to come from and how do we develop them and pay for them?
Murphy also stressed the importance of maintaining and increasing funding for the program.
“If there’s funding that can be found to increase their ability, the more they increase, the more people we can help. It’s very simple math,” she said. “Any of those programs are a supplement to helping the greater good. The more we can fund those, the better off our people who are suffering are going to be and that, in the end, has a huge, exponential helping factor within the community.”
— By Sydnee Chapman
Also read in Salish Current:
• “New Whatcom County jail could face decreased funding,” May 27, 2025
• “When ‘lock ’em up’ doesn’t make sense,” June 25, 2024
• “No easy answers to Whatcom fentanyl health disaster,” March 8, 2023
• “Jail needs to change, community agrees; but how?” Jan. 3, 2023