Substitute House Bill 1178 (69th Legislature, 2025 Regular Session), sponsored by House Community Safety and read first time 02/10/25, amends multiple sentencing provisions and definitions in chapter 9.94A RCW and related sections, and repeals two statutes (RCW 9.94A.833 and RCW 69.50.435). The bill rewrites and expands many statutory definitions in RCW 9.94A.030, and amends RCW 9.94A.533, 9.94A.599, 9.94A.729, RCW 10.01.210, and RCW 72.01.410, among others. Section timing provided in the bill indicates Section 1 expires January 1, 2026, and Section 2 takes effect January 1, 2026. The bill changes penalties and procedural rules relating to sentencing enhancements and earned release. It adjusts firearm and nonfirearm deadly-weapon enhancements (specifying added terms by felony class and doubling where prior enhancements exist), adds or clarifies enhancements for sexual motivation and certain commercial-sex offenses (with specified additional confinement amounts by felony class), imposes jail/state-facility drug offense enhancements and impaired-driving enhancements, and creates a mandatory 12-month minor-child passenger enhancement for certain impaired-driving vehicular assault/homicide offenses (12 months per child under 16). Many of these enhancements are described as mandatory and to run consecutively to other sentencing provisions, with specified exceptions; some enhancements may be doubled if prior similar enhancements were imposed. The bill also revises earned release rules: it limits earned-release credits for portions of sentences attributable to certain enhancements, sets varying caps on aggregate earned release by offense type and date ranges, establishes eligibility criteria (including risk-assessment requirements and program participation) for earning up to 50% aggregate release in some cases, requires department procedures for approving release plans and permits limited partial confinement or rental-voucher assistance to obtain approved release plans, and requires use of a risk instrument recommended by the Washington State Institute for Public Policy. Procedural changes also include permissive notice provisions in RCW 10.01.210 regarding armed-offender-related sanctions and new custody/placement rules for persons convicted as adults of felonies committed under age 18, including initial placement with the Department of Children, Youth, and Families, limits on transfer to the Department of Corrections before age 25, review requirements, and custody approval rules for community custody release plans. Legally, the bill primarily modifies existing law rather than creating new crimes: it changes definitions, increases or clarifies sentencing enhancement amounts and when they apply, alters earned-release calculation and administrative procedures, changes custody and placement procedures for certain young offenders, and repeals two statutes. Several portions of the provided text are incomplete or cut off (multiple definitions and some subsection text end mid-sentence), so the full scope and some specific details of the amendments are unclear from the extracted facts alone.

If enacted, the bill would make several changes that are likely to increase time in custody for people convicted of a range of offenses and shift responsibilities and costs to corrections agencies. Mandatory sentence enhancements would add fixed months or years for crimes involving firearms, other deadly weapons, sexual motivation, impaired driving priors, and child passengers in DUI-related vehicular assaults or homicides; repeat enhancements can be doubled and some enhancement time cannot be earned off as early release. That will likely raise average lengths of stay, reduce earned-release eligibility for portions of sentences, and increase workload and bed-space needs for the Department of Corrections, county jails, and juvenile facilities, while also increasing court processing for enhancement findings. The bill also expands operational duties: the Department of Corrections must apply a recommended risk tool, develop earned-release and community-custody procedures (including approving release plans), maintain a list of approved housing providers and administer short-term rental vouchers paired with transition services, and deliver legal financial obligation payments daily to superior court clerks; county jails must certify presentence custody and lost credit days. The Department of Children, Youth, and Families will keep certain people convicted as adults for crimes committed under 18 in its custody until transfer rules kick in (generally up to age 25) and must review placements for older detainees. These changes create likely added costs for corrections programming, housing vouchers, vetting housing providers, data collection, and case management, and could increase risks of capacity strain; the bill text omits some implementation details and the effective and expiration dates, so timing and some operational scope remain unclear.