The courthouse in downtown Bremerton is the professional home of Judge Tracy Flood, a U.S. Navy veteran who joined the Armed Forces at 17 years old. Arriving in Washington state at the age of 19, Flood attended night classes at Olympic College during her eight-year tenure in the military.
“Once I finished at Olympic College, I transferred to the University of Washington, Seattle,” Flood said. “And then I worked a year for the state of Washington as a juvenile rehabilitative counselor.”
From there, the judge attended Seattle University School of Law, back when it was the University of Peterson. While her career started out working in juvenile justice, she ended up presiding over all criminal matters in a court of limited jurisdiction.
As the first elected Black woman in Kitsap County to a judicial position, and the first elected woman to the city of Bremerton, Flood aspired to be a judge in the community that she had invested in, that she raised her daughter and younger sister in. When she was elected to her position as judge in November 2021, Flood had been practicing law for 21 years. Her professional journey followed stints in maximum and medium security facilities such as Green Hill School and Mission Creek. She has supported clients with mental health hearings and as a public defender, she did all the felony arraignments.
“The average person doesn’t understand what judges really do,” Flood said. “The amount of work. I am a single court bench. So not only do I do calendars Monday through Friday, I also respond to all the warrant calls, 2 o’clock, 3 o’clock in the morning. And then addressing arrests that have happened over the weekend with reviewing police reports on Sundays.
“A lot of our smaller courts, the courts of limited jurisdictions, do have one judge.”
Flood, in her tenure, has also established a community court.
What drew Flood to the field of criminal justice? Growing up in the city of Chicago gave her a direct line of sight of what we now call the school to prison pipeline. At the age of 12, Flood recalls having a summer job as a tutor through a summer program.
“I’m in seventh, eighth grade, tutoring kids in high school who couldn’t read but were athletes, and in some way had been passed and pushed through the system,” Flood said. “So, from that day forward, my heart has always been around making sure to interrupt that school to prison pipeline whenever I could.”
Flood remembers the community she grew up in, reaching back to memories from 5 years old. Her elementary school was across the street from the apartment buildings and her parents could look out the window and see her walk to the playground. Across from there was the ABC Youth Center. And on the other corner to the east was the middle school in the Douglas Park area of Chicago. She felt like it was the greatest neighborhood because, in the early 1970s, everyone knew each other. Through those years something shifted, Flood said.
“I don’t know, but something changed,” Flood said. “And then the building went from being a street building to live in to a slum building.”
Multiple factors added to the decline of her neighborhood. “But now that I know history, it was very political.”
The gradual erasure of community programs, depleting resources and an uptick in crime are among the factors that started a trend of urban decay, weakening the infrastructure of what was, to Flood, one of the greatest neighborhoods. That ABC Youth Center had men of color who were there counseling. Youth had a place to go right there in the neighborhood where they lived. There were activities.
“I really think that we have moved away from that ‘I am my brother’s keeper mentality’ to ‘what’s in it for me,’ ” Flood said.
Her experiences growing up in Chicago steered her toward a career in criminal justice. When asked what she would do today to change the trajectory of eroding the inner cities, Flood would change the lens of our messaging when talking to and about youth from positive to negative. Keeping programs funded is a priority to support youth and understanding the underlying and overarching effects of poverty in families.
“Make the investment into the children where they live,” she said.
Those communities with the highest needs should not be underfunded and unprotected.
“My work in the juvenile arena continued officially through paid work while I was in law school. But after law school, I kind of switched over to the adult side,” Flood said.
Now Flood’s passion for mentoring juveniles and teenagers is voluntary. Her contributions to youth programming include the following activities and initiatives: the ACT-SO program for the Bremerton branch of the NAACP; a community art wall to feature paintings from young people; the AVID program at an area middle school; the Access to Justice Conference; Pierce County Minority Bar Association’s Youth in Law; the University District YouthCare program in Seattle; and last year Flood facilitated a countywide youth in law forum.
Flood hopes her volunteerism and love for mentoring youth can introduce them to the criminal justice system from a positive standpoint so that their first introduction isn’t with an officer in a negative light.
“We want to kind of stop that revolving door, stop that school to prison pipeline; interrupt what’s happening and address the issues that are really plaguing the individuals,” Flood said.
She sees the need for a different perspective in the legal profession, in which many judges are appointed. When Flood tried for an appointment, she said she learned a lot of things in the process. She noted that across the U.S., judicial races have become more political and divisive.
“What has happened to the notion of justice for all? Lady Justice is broken. Why do you think that is? Because of systemic racism in the justice system. Our Washington Supreme Court has acknowledged that,” Flood said. “But when you have a history of a country of racism that is built on the enslavement of a people that built the country’s wealth, how do you continue that?”
Flood correlates capitalism to how our systems function.
Understanding poverty and privilege in America is critical for those in positions of power to understand. There is also, Flood asserted, a sense of entitlement rightness in her profession that taints the process; everything from who’s expected to be a prosecutor to who’s supposed to be a defense attorney and how race plays into that narrative.
“So, the process within itself is plagued with challenges and issues of racial bias,” Flood said.
When reflecting on enacting change, Flood knows that change is needed, but change is hard. It takes sacrifice.
To new lawyers she presses, “Will you accept the challenge? Of being a changemaker, if that also puts a target on your back? Count the cost. Because often we sit on the sidelines because it does come at a heavy cost. But we can talk about change. And until we have a seat at the table, we can’t expect change to happen.”
She said other pertinent issues impacting the effectiveness of the justice system are the salaries between the public defender and the prosecutor, funding of the courts, and recognition of how all three branches will address the crisis that exists in our criminal justice system. We are in crisis, Flood said.
“We’re reacting. We need to become proactive,” Flood said. “In order to do that, we have to recognize that.”