West Seattle Crime Watch: Burglar Jason Wyman pleads guilty

Three months after burglarizing three homes in one day, 33-year-old Jason Wyman has pleaded guilty. We reported on his spree back in July, when he was charged with breaking into two houses and a guest house within blocks of each other in Gatewood and Upper Fauntleroy; in two of those cases, people were home when he walked in through an open or unlocked door.

According to court documents from his plea hearing last Friday, Wyman is also suspected – but has not and will not be charged in – two other local incidents in July, a burglary at a business in the 7200 block of West Marginal Way SW and a theft at a business in the 7300 block of Delridge Way. Court documents list more than 40 property and drug crimes on his record, dating back to 1996, when he was 15. (The photo above is from 2002, which the state Department of Corrections says was the last time he was in their custody.) In the plea agreement, the King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office recommends that he get a prison-based Drug Offender Sentencing Alternative (DOSA) sentence of three years, which would include mandatory substance-abuse treatment, followed by three years of community custody (probation). He’s eligible for that, according to court documents, because these are non-violent offenses and he hasn’t had a DOSA sentence in at least 10 years (if ever). He is scheduled for sentencing on October 31st before King County Superior Court Judge Douglass North.

amalia October 20, 2014 (2:55 pm)

These scum cause people so much grief. The response is simply (IMO) not punitive enough. It won’t make up for the suffering he’s inflicted on people. 40+ crimes!

McGruff October 20, 2014 (3:15 pm)

This clown has a rap sheet that goes on forever! He hardly sounds like a good candidate for rehabilitation. He is a career criminal, and will re-offend at first opportunity. I wish we could contract out incarceration of folks like him to Mexican jails; now THERE’S a deterrent!

Jeff October 20, 2014 (3:39 pm)

Agreed amalia. His victims get no restitution, and he gets the lightest slap on the wrist.

PSPS October 20, 2014 (5:38 pm)

To McGruff: What is it about Mexican jails that would make them a special kind of deterrent?

WSince86 October 20, 2014 (6:24 pm)

On the bright side of things … By pleading guilty, we don’t have to pay for a trial and none of us have to sit on the jury!

Eric1 October 20, 2014 (8:56 pm)

I know he doesn’t have three strikes but 40 foul tips have got to count for some extra time in jail. Even just one month per conviction would make me happy.

pupsarebest October 20, 2014 (9:01 pm)

Given that he will be walking freely throughout Seattle, is it too much to ask for a recent photo of this little darling?

WSB October 20, 2014 (9:12 pm)

There will not be a current photo until he’s back in prison (and that’s state prison, as opposed to county jail). DOC is the only agency that makes mugshots available to journalists and this is the newest one they have. If we are able to cover his sentencing (we always try, for the cases we highlight here, but sometimes inconveniently something gets in the way of going downtown) we will.

Chrisd October 20, 2014 (9:59 pm)

Even though it’s not a violent crime, it effects people psychologically for quite some time, takes away all sense of safety and freedom, therefore should be punished appropriately, more time behind bars.

WseaResident October 20, 2014 (11:39 pm)

LOL looking at his picture reminds me of the bad guy in Dragonheart.

carole October 21, 2014 (11:32 am)

This report says he has a PRISON-based DOSA, so initially he is going away. That is different than a residential DOSA which occurs in a treatment facility. And if he violates during the following 3 years of supervision, he can be sent back to serve the supervision time in prison. Caveat, due to budget cuts, much supervision has been cut back.

zark00 October 21, 2014 (11:40 am)

He’s been a career criminal since at least 15.
I assume you’d all have thrown a 15 year old in jail too? How about 14, 12 11?

more time behind bars – wow, you people are misguided at best.

I am shocked at the right-wing, NIMBY, I got mine, elitist, paranoid, anti-liberal comments. Can’t believe these are coming from West Seattlites.

Rich Crenshaw October 21, 2014 (12:04 pm)

Zark –
I hope you never have to be the victim of a crime, but maybe we should be thinking of a society’s ability to protect itself from criminals and predators a little more.
Granted our penal system isn’t very good at ‘rehabilitation’, but that doesn’t remove the obligation to incarcerate criminals. Once an individual decides to victimize others and commit crimes, the punishment should at the minimum serve to discourage such future behavior. Repeated offenses should increase the penalties. If you merely tell someone to stop their behavior without meaningful consequences, you are encouraging future criminal acts.
Looking at the comments, I believe most are upset that a criminal predator with over 40 incidents is being handed a slap on the wrist – and that specific predator is 33 years old – not 15, 14 12, or 11.
So how is everyone misguided again?

Ex-Westwood Resident October 21, 2014 (12:08 pm)

Depending on the crime (non-violent):
First offense at 15? No, in fact I would say no to “Juvie” also.
Second offense at 16? Still no to prison, but a stint in “Juvie” might be in order.
Third offense at 17? Definatly time in “Juvie” until 18.
ANY offense over the age of 18 PRISON.
The perp has shown a TOTAL disregard for the law and obeying it, and repect for others. Maybe a stint in the State Pen might help, but by that time it’s probably too late for any type of rehab.

Eric October 21, 2014 (12:19 pm)

@zark

Right wing? Anti liberal, I got mine attitude? This isn’t about I got mine so screw you. This is about I worked hard for mine and you don’t deserve to steal it from me because you feel entitled.

The fact is when people are robbed, either within their house or their car is stolen, it can put a hardship and burden on that person or family that is often not taken into account.

Oh they just stole a car. Really? And what if that family completely relies on that car to get family members to work, school, daycare, etc? What happens when this is taken away from them, because someone felt entitled to take their car?

And breaking into someone’s home? Besides feeling violated, the homeowner is the one that has to eat the deductible for insurance. The homeowner is the one that has to pay the higher insurance rates. And all so often, even when restitution is ordered, the homeowners often see very little if at all any of that money back. And what of the homeowners who may be financially struggling, but are still doing right? What about the financial strain they’re put through even further, because some POS felt entitled enough to violate that person’s privacy and steal what that person worked hard to buy for themselves?

Don’t confuse having a sense of morality with some Ayn Rand novel

Community Member October 21, 2014 (9:18 pm)

The tax burden required to lock up every brain-damaged, non-violent drug user is prohibitive. It simply cannot be done, regardless of whether anyone thinks it would be a fair or reasonable response.

From what I understand, he wandered into unlocked houses and took stuff, and that was really, really scary for the residents. Mandatory drug treatment is absolutely an appropriate response.

GUA8Avenger30Mike October 22, 2014 (1:23 pm)

Burglary is an inherently dangerous crime. A surprised homeowner could whip out the Louisville Slugger (or something) and give this guy a good working over (and the public a bill for repairing the damage). This jerk deserves to be in the gray bar hotel for a while.

Eric October 22, 2014 (3:21 pm)

Mandatory drug treatment is an appropriate response about 10 YEARS AGO. Since this POS has had 40 drug and property crimes dating back to 1996. WTF was our “justice system” doing about this all of those years and times? Obviously not much, and that’s why this guy continued to do what he did for so long.

No consequences? No problem. I’l just keep doing what I am doing, because it is not like anything is going to happen to me. It only took 15 years and 40 crimes listed on one’s record to get what he got now. That’s almost an average of 3 crimes a year.

Obviously criminals need consequences because they’re not going to stop due to morality. “Oh you mean it’s wrong to break into people’s houses and take their stuff they worked hard to buy? Huh, I didn’t know that. Well I better not do that again.”

waterworld October 22, 2014 (8:17 pm)

I can’t say for sure what the criminal justice system was doing for the past fifteen years or so, but I do know that sentences generally increase as a person’s criminal history increases. I would assume that Wyman has been treated the same way.

But just imposing longer and longer sentences doesn’t deter other people from committing crimes and it doesn’t reduce the rate of recidivism among offenders who have been released from prison. This is especially true for people with serious drug problems. If Wyman is getting a prison DOSA sentence, it’s because he has a serious drug problem which is behind much of his criminal activity. The research is clear that defendants who complete a prison-based DOSA sentence are much less likely to commit new crimes than defendants who serve a standard sentence. And DOSA sentences cost the taxpayers less, partly because DOSA sentences tend to be shorter than non-DOSA sentences.

I understand why it is tempting to give someone like Wyman a really long sentence, but imposing longer sentences is incredibly inefficient and costly. For someone like Wyman, prison-based drug treatment may be the best approach. And with some of the money we save, we could do more to keep other 15 year-olds from heading down the path that Wyman did.

Eric October 23, 2014 (5:26 am)

Waterworld,

Please provide the research that shows that people that complete DOSA are MUCH less likely to commit new crimes. This would entail that drug treatment works for a large percentage of people in the program.

The fact is, according to my former professor, in the my drug abuse-drug treatment class, almost 87 percent of people that stop using drugs and alcohol, do so on their own. Meaning only about roughly 13 percent of people who stop using drugs or alcohol, do so with some kind of treatment plan and/or counseling.

I doubt that the DOSA has a much higher successful percentage rate that the general population. So while there are some success stories within the DOSA, let’s not fool ourselves that the majority of people that go through the program remain drug and alcohol free, so many of the people in the program do not commit new crimes. Many people actually go through these programs to escape jail time and work the system. I saw it day and day out when I was interning at one of these drug programs, people BSing their way through the program. Unfortunately for Jason, it’s mandatory with his jail time.

That doesn’t mean I’m against alternative’s such as the DOSA, but I do think there needs to stronger consequences for people’s actions. You may say that more severe punishments for committing crimes doesn’t deter others from committing crimes. Well I say that not imposing punishments, or imposing punishments so lenient that it takes 15 years and 40 drug and property crime offenses before getting 3 years and mandatory DOSA, DEFINITELY DOESN’T DETER OTHERS FROM COMMITTING CRIMES. Most people who commit crimes are selfish, self centered, entitled people who have a skewed moral compass and lack any real ethics. All they seem to understand is risk vs. reward. If the risk is too high, then maybe the reward is not worth it.

But you missed the point. Why wasn’t Jason sentenced to DOSA years ago if his crimes were drug related with property crime? If we’re going to go with the progressive justice system as in a linear context. Then he should have been sentenced to this years ago. 15 years later and 40 crimes later is not acceptable.

Eric

Thomas M. October 23, 2014 (11:40 am)

Bravo Eric.

gia October 23, 2014 (2:10 pm)

When a person goes to jail/prision, they stop using drugs/alcohol, because they HAVE to, not because they WANT to. More often then not, the offender will get out and go right back to getting drunk/high. Drugs like spice (synthetic marjuana) allow offenders to smoke, get high, and lots of times, avoid detection during the routing UAs that some probation officers give. DOSA can help, but only if the offender want to help themselves first. Most people jump on board because there is usually a shorter time spent behind bars, and the offender figures that he can be out much sooner, and even though there may be time hanging over said offenders head, thats not much of a deterrent becuase the offender can violate the terms of his probation many times before a real serious consequence can occur. Sad but true

zark00 October 23, 2014 (2:26 pm)

Eric – we don’t say things like “screw you” here on the WSB buddy. Not sure why your comment wasn’t deleted, but it should have been.

You’re clearly terrified big guy, and I’m sorry you’re so scared to live in a big-ish city. A small town might be more your speed there scooter.

Quote from Eric:
“This isn’t about I got mine so screw you. This is about I worked hard for mine and you don’t deserve to steal it from me because you feel entitled.”

So not about “I got mine” followed by “I got mine, and someone stole it” – hmmmmm – making my point there aren’t ya champ?

So, buddy, think about what you’re saying here – a guy who broke into a house for drug money should be thrown in prison. Umm… wouldn’t you fix the underlying problem instead? You’d really prefer a better trained, more connected, criminal on the streets. Kind of backward logic there winner.

Since you can’t google, I found your stats for you.
For drug offenders, DOSA reduces recidivism by a statistically significant percentage – about 10%.
For property offenders it reduces recidivism by a statistically insignificant percentage, under 5% – so see you were right – but not at all for the reasons you thought you were right.
Facts are good – you should try to use them more. You should also stop posting until you can control yourself.

waterworld October 23, 2014 (2:49 pm)

Eric: The analysis of recidivism following prison-based DOSA sentences comes from the Council of State Governments Justice Reinvestment Task Force, which is in the middle of a lengthy review of Washington State’s criminal justice system, focused on developing evidence-based approaches to reducing crime and allocating criminal-justice resources efficiently. The underlying data is from the Department of Corrections, the State Patrol, and the Sentencing Guidelines Commission. The specific finding is that the one-year recidivism rate (using felony arrest to mean “recidivism”) for prison-based DOSA offenders with high offender scores (meaning a significant criminal history) runs between about 6% to 15% less than that of similarly situated non-DOSA offenders released from prison. People may of course differ on whether that is “much” or not, so I withdraw the adjective.

And where do you get the information that “Most people who commit crimes are selfish, self centered, entitled people who have a skewed moral compass and lack any real ethics”? Not only do I disagree that “all they seem to understand is risk vs. reward,” I would say it’s just the opposite: repeat offenders and drug-abusing offenders often have no understanding of the true risks they face, and the rewards they reap are slim to none, despite all the damage they do to people around them. (And I bet a lot of them do understand that, actually. Understanding and acting are two different things, though.)

As for why Wyman wasn’t sentenced to DOSA years ago if his crimes were drug related with property crime, I don’t know. I don’t know what his prior crimes are, when they were committed, what sentence he received, or the nature of his drug problem. I doubt you know, either. But I don’t think Wyman is the point at all, because there’s no way of knowing whether his history is typical. By that I mean that his particular criminal history doesn’t tell us much, if anything, about what policies were in place when he was first committing crimes 15 years ago, or whether those policies were applied to him, or what would have worked to change his path 15 years ago. Criminal justice policy cannot be based on the history of a single offender.

Here’s one thing that I think matters: Washington has one of the highest rates of property offenses in the country, despite the fact that we sentence property offenders who have high offender scores to much longer terms of imprisonment than other states. Many states that impose shorter sentences on property offenders have far lower rates of property crimes than we do. That, along with a whole lot of other data (available on the site noted below and many other places), tends to show that longer sentences do little to affect the rate of these crimes while being the most expensive approach. Two things that do have a big effect are the prison-based DOSA sentences and heavy-duty supervision following release.

I recommend anyone who is interested in these issues to check out the information on the Justice Reinvestment Task Force website (http://www.governor.wa.gov/issues/reform/justice/).

Eric October 24, 2014 (4:12 am)

Wow, what an absolutely unimpressive reply Zark. You talk about facts, and yet your reply proceeds to create imaginings within your mind about what I am for the satisfaction of your argument and then uses these imaginings in ad hominem fashion, not in the attempt to validate your point of view, but simply as an attempt to invalidate my character.

According to your fantasies, I’m clearly terrified, out of control (even though my reply to you was rational and discussed the topic of the hardships that can be put on the victims of these crimes), who is incapable of using Google. You then further attempt to validate your ad hominem tactics by labeling terms onto me designed to demean and/or belittle another within this context, such as: scooter, buddy, champ, winner, big guy etc.

But getting past all of this “filler”, lets look at your reply. First you say we don’t say things like “screw you” on the WSB. Do you understand context, or are you reaching in the hopes to validate your argument? The context in which that was used was not used in any derogatory way towards any specific individual, but was actually a further description of the mentality that you spoke of when you accused people on this site of having a “I got mine” attitude.

Now lets look at your reply to my statements about this with my quote and your reply.

Quote from Eric: “This isn’t about I got mine so screw you. This is about I worked hard for mine and you don’t deserve to steal it from me because you feel entitled.”

Zark quote: So not about “I got mine” followed by “I got mine, and someone stole it” – hmmmmm – making my point there aren’t ya champ?

Eric: Your reply to my statement simply demonstrates your lack of discernment and critical thinking in the hopes that you can pass this off as me being a hypocrite. Your confusion with this subject is astounding to think the two are synonymous.

There is a huge difference between the two. The mindset of “I got mine, so screw you” is a mindset of simply thinking of oneself with complete disregard with anyone less fortunate. In short, it is I got mine, let others fend for themselves. This is obviously what you are trying to present as my mindset since you are equating that I don’t condone people breaking into other people’s homes and stealing their things that they worked hard for as the same thing.

Yet, me and my wife donate regularly to Children’s Hospital. We also give food to the food banks on a regular basis. I’ve volunteered at food banks and canned food drives. My wife always looks for items on sale such as toothbrushes, soap, toothpaste, shampoo, etc. to put together care packages to give to the homeless, etc. So your attempt at trying to equate the two statements as synonymous to make your point is rather fallacious.

You also wrote: So, buddy, think about what you’re saying here – a guy who broke into a house for drug money should be thrown in prison.

Eric: Again, you’re trying to make an argument by taking something out of context. You’re trying to imply that this happened once with the statement “A house”. It wasn’t a house. It was many houses. This isn’t one offense against Jason, it is his 40th. And if you would have also read what I said, instead of taking the time to read what I wrote instead of working up these fantasies to project onto me in order to make your ad hominem tactics “work”, you would see that my questioning and frustration was not that Jason received DOSA, it was that he received it AFTER THE 40TH TIME. As I said before, that is unacceptable. If the justice system is going to use a progressive way to deal with criminals in the linear sense, then Jason (considering his types of crimes) should have received this type of sentence years ago, NOT NOW.

But thanks for replying to the points I made about the hardships that can put onto the families that are victims of these crimes. Oh wait, I forgot, you didn’t reply to those points. Instead, you create this fantasy in your mind that I can’t seem to control myself and then write a response filled with ad hominem attacks and belittling labels in hopes of fulfilling this fantasy.

Thomas M. October 24, 2014 (7:15 pm)

Forget it Eric. You are just another in a string of flame warrior attacks. The MO does not change. Just keep telling yourself “Noise is inversely proportional to merit”. Right Collins?