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Semantic Drift: When Research Plays Telephone
Researcher critical of arrest diversion program data.
A social science researcher questions data supporting the efficacy of the Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion (LEAD) program. A recent paper claims data supporting LEAD is based on distorted, inaccurate statistics that have misinformed nationwide expansion efforts. State and local leadership not only repeated the inaccurate data, like rumor and gossip, it changed meaning along the way.
Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion, or LEAD, began in Seattle in 2011 as a pre-booking diversion program for low-level drug and prostitution offenses. It allows police officers to redirect individuals away from jail into harm-reduction case management. LEAD is a marquee program in King County and has since spread across the country.
Seattle and King County continue to struggle with the impact of individuals experiencing chronic addiction — despite years of public spending. The King County Regional Homelessness Authority has spent nearly $1.1 billion since 2021 alone. It's reported King County overdose deaths surge to highest weekly level since May.
LEAD is getting another look.
Washington Policy Center researcher Eric Zimmerman has studied issues like global poverty. He is a data cruncher using his skill to examine the methods supporting claims of LEAD’s success and recently called for a "national retraction" of claims about the program's evidence base.
Zimmerman’s paper says,
“LEAD's foundational research demonstrates significant design limitations that appear to contradict both the way it has been used and some of its conclusions. This includes lost statistical control, artificial influences, and midstream methodological changes. LEAD's "benefit", as portrayed in most public sources, is not supported by causal evidence.”
Telephone
Most people know the game Telephone.
One person whispers a message to the next, who passes it along until it reaches the last person in the circle. The fun is hearing how much the message has changed.
The point isn’t that somebody lied — everyone may have faithfully repeated what they thought they heard, but the story changes along the way.
Something similar happened with one of Seattle's most influential criminal justice programs. LEAD’s initial claims changed meaning along the way. Considering the persistent problem of chronic addiction homelessness, the stakes are more than academic integrity.
In King County, more than two people, on average, die every day from a drug overdose
That's reason to question the status quo. For that, we have to ask: What did Zimmerman find?
First Message
In March 2015, University of Washington researchers reported that LEAD participants had "58% lower odds" of arrest than a control group.
That's the first whisper on the telephone line.
Less than two weeks later, UW's public summary said participants were "58% less likely" to be arrested.
While that may sound like the same thing, mathematically, it isn't. Zimmerman’s paper tells us that odds and probability are different measurements.
So the first whisper had changed to, '58% less likely'. Then this traveled down the line. Seattle Police repeated it. LEAD repeated it. Seattle City Council repeated it.
Now, responding to Zimmerman’s criticism, LEAD's co-creator acknowledges the number has indeed been inaccurately reported. In an interview with The Center Square , Lisa Daugaard agreed that describing the finding as a 58% reduction in arrests was a mistake and said the figure would be amended.
Down the Line
LEAD spread well beyond Seattle. Washington established a state grant program, and jurisdictions across the country adopted the model.
More than a decade after the original study, Zimmerman went through the claims, applied his own data crunching skills, and reached a different conclusion. LEAD's commonly portrayed benefit, he wrote, "is not supported by causal evidence.” His paper called it, "11 years of false numbers”.
A study becomes a summary, then a summary becomes a talking point — which all helps support a funding request in a public budget. Programs expand, more public money must follow and the original qualifications can become harder to hear.
The big reminder of the Telephone game is how the truth does not change. It’s the story we’re told which changes. Here is the real truth — Chronic addiction homelessness is a public health emergency that’s getting worse and our leaders have no plan to change course.
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