I'm Paris Jackson in the Cascade PBS newsroom.

Welcome to The Newsfeed.

She campaigned on them and is hoping to bring them back to Seattle: community courts.

For City Attorney Erika Evans, one of the first major changes she has planned is to reestablish a community court in collaboration with the city's municipal court and public defenders.

The court was a place for those accused of low level offenses to access social services without pleading guilty to a crime.

The Seattle Community Court was dissolved in 2023.

When then City Attorney Ann Davison announced her office would no longer participate.

It was the city's third attempt in 12 years at creating a court like this.

In making a fourth attempt, Evans says she's looking at other Washington cities with active community courts.

-Community court... I think the biggest thing that's great about it, it's... it deals with misdemeanors and it deals with nonviolent misdemeanors.

It allows folks that are committing quality of life crimes... say, you know, a minor theft or someone that's unhoused.

It allows them to get connected with treatment and service providers so they don't get out and re-offend.

And it allows them to get connected and their case gets diverted.

And that's what we all want at the end of the day, for folks not to get out and re-offend.

I've gone and looked at models across our state in Tacoma, Redmond, even in Bellevue, and they are community courts that are thriving and they're allowing folks to get what they need.

So they're not getting right back out and re-offending.

-Coming up tomorrow, there are hot spots around Seattle where it's not uncommon to see open drug use.

You'll hear about the changes Evans has planned to address the issue.

I'm Paris Jackson.

Thank you for watching The Newsfeed, your destination for nonprofit Northwest news.

Go to CascadePBS.org for more.