12,332 bookings across three years, organized into five categories. Each has a distinct charge profile, a different relationship to public safety, and different implications for how the community should respond.
Source: WCSO Booking Data 2023-2025. Chuckanut Health Foundation analysis. Poverty is an overlay and excluded from this stacked chart to avoid double-counting.
Source: WCSO Booking Data 2025. Poverty is shown separately as it overlaps with Order and Property. Rare = 199 bookings with charges that fall outside the five primary categories.
Crimes against persons are the most serious category in this dataset. Assault, domestic violence, robbery, rape, and child sexual exploitation each leave a specific person harmed. Victims did not choose to be in this data. Their experience matters, and the system's response to this category should be evaluated on victim safety and accountability, not only on cost or efficiency.
This dashboard shows who is being booked, how the system is responding, and whether that response is proportionate. It does not minimize the harm these charges represent.
Source: WCSO Booking Data 2025. "Serious violent felony" = Assault 1st/2nd/3rd, Robbery 1st/2nd, Rape, Child Rape, Kidnap, Vehicular Assault, Homicide. "Child exploitation" = Pornography/Depict Minors, Child Molestation, Sexual Exploitation of Minor, Communicating with Minor for Immoral Purposes. "Co-charge" = bookings where a violent charge appeared alongside a primary non-violent charge (DUI, DWLS, DOC Detainer).
Source: WCSO Booking Data 2025. Violent felony: median LOS 7 days, 32% held 31+ days, No Bail Allowed 20%, median bail $10,000. All persons: median LOS 3 days. All bookings: median LOS 2 days.
| Charge | Class | Count |
|---|---|---|
| Assault 4th Degree | Misd. A | 386 |
| Violation DV Protection Order | Gross Misd. | 110 |
| Assault 2nd Degree | Felony B | 102 |
| Assault 4th Degree / FTA | Misd./Warrant | 86 |
| Violation No Contact Order (DV) | Gross Misd. | 65 |
| Violation No Contact Order | Gross Misd. | 48 |
| Assault 3rd (on LE officer) | Felony B | 41 |
| Violation Protection Order | Gross Misd. | 38 |
| Harassment (Felony) | Felony | 38 |
| Harassment (non-felony) | Misd./Gross Misd. | 39 |
| Assault and Battery 3rd DV | Gross Misd. | 24 |
| Child Sexual Exploitation (all) | Felony A/B | 36 |
| Stalking / Telephone Harassment | Felony/Gross Misd. | 13 |
| Indecent Exposure / Voyeurism | Gross Misd. | 11 |
| Assault 1st Degree | Felony A | ~8 |
| Robbery 1st Degree | Felony A | ~12 |
| Rape 2nd / 3rd Degree | Felony A | ~23 |
| Child Rape 1st / 2nd | Felony A | ~16 |
| Unlawful Imprisonment | Felony B/C | 33 |
| Co-charge (primary = order offense) | Mixed | 390 |
Source: WCSO Booking Data 2025. "Co-charge" = bookings classified as Persons because a violent charge appeared anywhere in the record, but whose primary charge was a DOC Detainer, DUI, or DWLS. These entered the facility via a different pathway; the violent charge is real but not what triggered the booking.
Source: WCSO Booking Data 2025. Physical Control = operating a vehicle while too impaired to drive but not in motion. Reckless Endangerment = placing another in substantial risk of death/injury (not traffic-specific). Vehicular Assault = injury caused while driving impaired or recklessly.
Source: WCSO Booking Data 2025. Day of week from booking timestamp. The Saturday/Sunday share (56%) is consistent with post-bar and recreational drinking patterns.
Source: WCSO Booking Data 2025. Malicious Mischief 2nd = damage over $750. Malicious Mischief 3rd = damage under $750. Burglary Residential = entering a dwelling unlawfully. Criminal Trespass sits at the intersection of property crime and poverty; context determines which framing applies.
Source: WCSO Booking Data 2025. Bellingham accounts for nearly two-thirds of all property crime arrests, reflecting the urban concentration of commercial retail targets and visible homelessness.
Source: WCSO Booking Data 2025. DOC Detainer = state Department of Corrections hold for supervision violation. Not a new local crime. Fugitive Warrant = outstanding warrant from another jurisdiction. Ignition Interlock Violation = operating a vehicle without the required ignition interlock device following a DUI conviction.
Source: WCSO Booking Data 2023-2025. DWLS growth driven by booking restriction changes allowing more warrant executions. DOC Detainer growth driven by state supervision policy. These are modifiable policy variables, not fixed trends.
Source: WCSO Booking Data 2025. All charges are real criminal charges. The "poverty" framing refers to the most common causal pathway, not to a legal element of the charge.
Source: WCSO 2023-2025. DWLS 3rd primary bookings grew from ~60 to 345. Drug possession grew from ~30 to 184. Both reflect specific, reversible policy decisions.
These bookings involve drug possession charges that belong in the Public Order / Poverty categories but were not captured by the primary classifier due to a spelling variant in the booking record: "POSSESSION OF A CONTROLED SUBSTANCE" (one L in Controlled). This is a data entry variation in the source records, not a different charge. Analytically these should be counted with the 184 drug possession bookings in the Poverty overlay.
27 bookings have no charge recorded in the primary charge field. These may represent holds where charging was pending at time of booking entry, or data entry gaps. They are retained in the dataset as real bookings but cannot be classified by charge.
Civil antiharassment orders are civil court orders (not criminal protection orders). Violating them results in a criminal booking. Distinct from the criminal Harassment charges already counted in Crimes Against Persons.
Weapons charges where the weapon itself was the primary charge, not in combination with an assault. Note that many weapons charges appear as co-charges in the Persons bucket and are already counted there.
Drug manufacturing and delivery charges that were not captured by the primary Order classifier. These are more serious than simple possession and belong in the Order category analytically.
Violations of specific court orders or supervision programs not captured by the main DOC/Probation classifier.
A specific statutory variant of disorderly conduct not captured by the main disorderly classifier (which caught 17 bookings already in Public Order).
Property-related charges using charge descriptions that did not match the primary Property classifier.
Charges with 1-2 bookings each. Every one is named. These are real bookings. Several reflect rural Whatcom County enforcement (livestock, ORV, junk vehicle). Others are genuinely unusual charges not seen elsewhere in the dataset.