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What this analysis shows about recidivism in Whatcom County
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1
About 78–80% of people who are booked in a given year are not booked again that year.
The within-year return rate has been stable at roughly 18–22% across 2023–2025. The majority of people who contact the jail do not cycle back, at least not within the same year.
2
WSU documented a drop from 35% to 18% 1-year recidivism between 2015 and 2019.
WSU's 2023 Progress Report documented that 1-year recidivism fell from 35% in 2015 to 18% by 2019. That period also saw expanding diversion programs including Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion (LEAD), Ground-Level Response and Coordinated Engagement (GRACE), and mental health court. The data does not isolate what proportion of the change is attributable to specific programs; multiple factors were in play. The post-2021 period has not yet been studied with equivalent methodology.
3
The top charges for returning individuals include warrants, administrative holds, drug possession, Domestic Violence (DV)-related offenses, and assault categories.
The top primary charges for individuals booked two or more times in 2025 are Warrant (32%), Department of Corrections (DOC) Detainer (8%), Violation of Court Order DV (6%), DWLS (5%), DUI (5%), drug possession (4%), Assault 4th DV (3%), and Burglary 2nd (3%). Assault, DV, and stalking categories together account for about 18% of repeat-contact bookings. The research literature documents associations between several of these charge categories and housing instability, substance use disorder, and court system access barriers.
4
The top 10% of individuals in 2025 accounted for approximately 24% of bookings.
This is a moderate concentration, not extreme. It means the jail population is not primarily driven by a small number of very high-frequency individuals, and that planning should address a broader population rather than focusing exclusively on the highest-frequency contacts.
Data sources: Whatcom County Sheriff's Office (WCSO) Public Booking CSV 2019, 2023–2025 (Chuckanut Health Foundation analysis); WSU Washington Rural Jails Network Progress Report 2023. Within-year recidivism defined as an individual booked more than once in the same calendar year. Cross-year recidivism defined as appearing in booking data in both years. Note: 2019 and 2023+ data use different NameID systems; cross-year comparisons between 2019 and later years are not reliable at the individual level.
Recidivism Analysis · Whatcom County · 2015–2025

Who returns to the jail,
what charges bring them back,
and what the data shows.

Recidivism data, who returns to the jail, how often, on what charges, and from which jurisdictions, is a core input into corrections planning. This dashboard presents within-year and cross-year return rates from the WCSO booking data for 2019 and 2023–2025, alongside WSU's analysis of longer-term recidivism trends from 2015 to 2021.

78.1%
of 2025 individuals not booked again that year
35%→18%
1-yr recidivism 2015→2019 as diversion expanded
24.4%
of bookings driven by top 10% of individuals
27%
of people booked in 2024 returned in 2025
Warrants
#1 charge among people booked 3+ times, 2025
Within-Year Recidivism
Annual Return Rates, What the Data Shows
How to Read This Within-year recidivism counts individuals booked more than once in the same calendar year. It is the most conservative measure, it understates true recidivism because some individuals who appear once in a given year will return the following year. Cross-year data is shown separately. Neither measure counts re-offense; both measure re-booking, which includes warrant holds, administrative detainers, and new charges alike.
Booked once only, 2019
72.7%
3,095 of 4,260 individuals · pre-diversion-peak
Booked once only, 2023
79.9%
2,287 of 2,863 individuals
Booked once only, 2024
81.7%
2,501 of 3,061 individuals · lowest return rate in data
Booked once only, 2025
78.1%
2,748 of 3,520 individuals
Booked 2+ times, 2025
21.9%
772 individuals returned within the year
Booked 3+ times, 2025
7.8%
274 individuals · up from 6% in 2023-24
Booked 5+ times, 2025
46
individuals · 1.3% of all individuals booked
Max bookings, one person 2025
9
No individual reached 10+ bookings in 2025
WCSO Booking Data 2019, 2023–2025 · Chuckanut Health Foundation analysis
Within-Year Return Rate Across Available Years
Booked once, 2–3 times, and 3+ times as share of all individuals that year

Source: WCSO Public Booking Data. Note: 2019 used different booking type classifications; figures are comparable but not identical to 2023+ methodology.

WCSO Booking Data 2025 · Chuckanut Health Foundation analysis
Distribution of Booking Frequency, 2025
How many people were booked how many times, the full distribution

Source: WCSO Public Booking Data 2025. Chuckanut Health Foundation analysis.

Historical Trend 2015–2021
What Happened When Diversion Expanded, The WSU Record
WSU Historical Context Between 2015 and 2019, Whatcom County's one-year recidivism rate fell nearly in half, from 35% to 18%. That period coincides with the expansion of LEAD, GRACE, mental health court, drug court, and re-entry support programs. This is not a correlation in need of a causal story; the WSU Washington Rural Jails Network documented this relationship directly. It is the most compelling evidence available that investment in the conditions driving repeated justice contact produces measurable reductions in that contact.
2015
35%
1-year recidivism
2016
32%
1-year recidivism
2017
28%
1-year recidivism
2018
24%
1-year recidivism
2019
18%
peak diversion investment
2020
18%
held (pandemic year)
2021
-
incomplete window
WSU Washington Rural Jails Network · Progress Report 2023
1-Year & 2-Year Recidivism by Booking Cohort, 2015 to 2021
Each bar is the cohort of people first booked that year, % who returned within 1 or 2 years

Source: WSU Washington Rural Jails Network Progress Report 2023, Appendix A. 2021 data incomplete, observation window only ~18 months at time of report.

WCSO Data 2023–2025 · Chuckanut Health Foundation analysis
Cross-Year Return Rates, Do People Booked Last Year Return?
Of people booked in year one, what share appeared in subsequent year's booking data

Source: WCSO Public Booking Data 2023–2025. Chuckanut Health Foundation analysis. Cross-year comparison uses NameID match, individuals who changed identifiers between years may not be captured.

The Post-2021 Gap The WSU data ends in 2021. The 2022–2025 period includes the post-SB 5536 drug charge surge, the DOC detainer increase, and the Failure to Appear (FTA) warrant accumulation, all of which disproportionately affect the behavioral health population with the highest rate of repeated contact. The within-year return rates in our 2023–2025 data (18–22%) are consistent with the post-2019 improvement holding in part, but we do not yet have a peer-reviewed study of whether the surge in bookings has been accompanied by a resurgence in recidivism rates. That analysis is one of the most important things the county could commission right now.
Booking Concentration
How Many People Are Driving How Many Bookings
Why Concentration Matters for Planning If bookings were perfectly distributed, every person booked exactly once, there would be no concentration at all and recidivism would be zero. In practice, some individuals are booked many times. Understanding how concentrated that pattern is tells planners whether the primary challenge is a small number of very high-frequency individuals (requiring intensive case management), a moderately distributed pattern (requiring broad system investment), or something in between. Whatcom County's 2025 data shows moderate concentration, not the extreme pattern sometimes assumed.
WCSO 2025 · Chuckanut Health Foundation analysis
Booking Concentration, Who Drives the Total
Share of all 2025 bookings accounted for by each percentile group of individuals
Top 1% of individuals (35 people)
4.2%
95.8%, all other individuals
Top 5% of individuals (176 people)
14.9%
85.1%
Top 10% of individuals (352 people)
24.4%
75.6%
Top 20% of individuals (704 people)
39.2%
60.8%
Remaining 80% of individuals (2,816 people)
60.8% of bookings
-

Source: WCSO Public Booking Data 2025. Chuckanut Health Foundation analysis. Percentile based on share of 3,520 unique individuals. Note: "moderate concentration", for comparison, research on high-utilizer populations in other systems often shows top 5% accounting for 30–50% of contacts.

Charge Profile, People Booked Repeatedly
Who Returns, and What They're Charged With
The Key Analytical Point The charge profile of individuals booked 3 or more times in 2025 is led by warrants and administrative court holds (Warrant 32%, DOC Detainer 8%, In From Court 4%), followed by DV-related offenses (Violation Court Order DV 6%, Assault 4th DV 3%), DWLS (5%), DUI (5%), and drug possession (4%). Assault, DV, and related categories together account for approximately 18% of repeat-contact bookings. Burglary 2nd accounts for about 3%. This is the actual composition of the repeat-contact population, it spans administrative holds, behavioral-health-associated charges, DV enforcement, and property crime.
WCSO 2025 · Chuckanut Health Foundation analysis · Individuals Booked 3+ Times
Top Charges, People Booked 3+ Times in 2025
All charge rows for the 274 individuals booked 3 or more times in 2025

Source: WCSO Public Booking Data 2025. All ArrestType entries for individuals with 3+ BookingNumbers that year.

WCSO 2025 · Chuckanut Health Foundation analysis
Within-Year Return Rate by Arresting Agency
Share of individuals first booked by each agency who returned within 2025

Source: WCSO 2025. Primary agency = agency of first booking in 2025 for that individual. Agencies with fewer than 20 individuals excluded.

Agency Breakdown
Return Rates by Arresting Jurisdiction, 2025
Interpreting Agency Return Rates Return rates vary by agency partly because of differences in the populations each agency books, DOC detainer bookings have the highest return rate because they disproportionately involve individuals with complex behavioral health histories cycling through supervision. Washington State Patrol (WSP)'s lower return rate reflects a booking population that skews toward traffic and one-time DUI contacts. These rates are not measures of each agency's effectiveness; they reflect the populations each agency encounters.
Agency Total Individuals 2025 Returned within 2025 Within-Year Return Rate Note
DOC (Detainer) 47 19
40.4%
 Reflects BH population cycling through supervision
Lummi PD 224 62
27.7%
 Warrant-dominant; resource gaps in housing and BH treatment
BPD 1,521 379
24.9%
 Largest volume; includes full population spectrum
Blaine PD 101 22
21.8%
 Border corridor; fugitive warrant share
Ferndale PD 124 26
21.0%
WCSO 957 178
18.6%
 Unincorporated county population
Lynden PD 99 18
18.2%
 DUI-dominant; lower hardship rate tracks lower return rate
WSP 322 47
14.6%
 Traffic and highway patrol population; lower repeat rate
Charge Profiles of Returning Individuals
Composition of Repeat-Contact Bookings
Charge Composition, Returning Individuals
Repeat contacts in 2025 cluster into three charge-profile groups, each associated with distinct patterns in the research literature.
Warrant-Dominant
About 55% of warrant bookings had no accompanying new charge. Among returning individuals, warrant accumulation is a common pattern. The research literature on FTA rates links missed appearances to housing instability, lack of transportation, and barriers to court system access. Warrant quashing clinics and court reminder programs have been studied in other jurisdictions.
Drug Possession
Drug possession charges constitute a growing share of repeat bookings following SB 5536. The research literature on substance use disorder and recidivism documents that untreated SUD is associated with higher rebooking rates. Medication-Assisted Treatment (MAT) outcomes in corrections-adjacent settings are documented in multiple published studies.
Housing-Instability-Associated
The 2022 Whatcom County stakeholder survey found 73% of surveyed jail inmates were homeless or couch-surfing. Housing instability is documented in the recidivism literature as associated with higher return rates and lower court appearance rates. The Q4 2025 data shows 796 households on the permanent supportive housing waitlist.
Planning Implications The recidivism data shows within-year return rates of roughly 20% across 2023–2025, concentrated in warrant, drug possession, and housing-instability-associated charge categories. The WSU historical trend (35% to 18% from 2015 to 2019) was documented during a period of expanding diversion investment; the methodology used does not isolate individual program effects. The post-2021 period has not been studied with equivalent rigor. How these patterns should inform facility sizing, Interlocal Agreement (ILA) investment commitments, and program funding are questions for the planning process to address with the full range of analytical inputs, of which this recidivism data is one component.
⚠ Beta Project, This data initiative is under active development. Figures, methodology, and content are subject to revision. If you notice an error, have additional data, or want to flag an omission, please email info@chuckanuthealthfoundation.org. We are grateful for corrections.